Busted Beer

Well, here’s a first which puts me in with a part of home brewing tradition and folklore I’d rather not be noted for having achieved. Exploding beer bottles – Yikes! (Hmmmmm. “Exploding Beer Bottles” would be an excellent name for a band.)

Back in the day, prohibition that is, the goal was to make alcohol. Brewing beer was the easiest and fastest way to do that. Stories abound of beer bottles exploding like popcorn in cellars, the result of covert brewmeistering in clandestine operations. In those dark times the knowledge for how to brew beer was, shall we say, an oral tradition passed down by anyone who managed to collect an audience. Inconsistent strains of yeast better suited for baking bread than brewing beer were used. Quality and environment control were at the mercy of the brewmeister’s patience. No one engaged in this practice had a biochemistry degree to help them through the subtleties of dealing with temperamental strains of yeast.

So what’s my excuse? I have a biochemistry degree. Actually, I have two of the darn things. Plus over 20 years of home brewing experience. Hard to say. That the bottles are uniformly over carbonated doesn’t suggest a poor distribution of priming sugar. A review of the notes by both my brew partner, Chris, and myself doesn’t reveal anything unusual. We certainly gave both the primary and secondary fermentation steps plenty of time, even for a stout. Me thinks a problem with the yeast. Something to follow up on with the yeast supplier.

But then, there is the potential terrorist angle. However mind bogglingly impossible the odds and chances that al-Qaeda, the Talibandidos or the Middle of the Road Progressive Isolationist Weekend Radicals had a hand in this, I would be remiss if this possibility wasn’t chased up every possible tree. Because one of those trees just might possibly potentially happen to be the right one to bark up at. I will, of course, need DHS money to follow these leads and fund multiple batches of decoy beer in order to bag the bastards. Neither can I dismiss the real possibility this is yet another strike of George Bush’s International Conspiracy to inconvenience me. I suppose a true Patriot would stay awake at night with a baseball bat guarding his beer against these threats. That or lobby for a law to guarantee Constitutional protection for my beer. Yeah, that will do it. Than I can sleep at night knowing there is a law to protect my beer.

Ah, well. This will all make more sense after I’ve kicked back and enjoyed a couple of home brews. Actually, for security reasons, I had better enjoy this batch as soon as possible. For now all the bottles from this batch are safely stashed in the refrigerator. Putting the chill on the yeast should stop any further pressure buildup and if any of the bugs decide to blow the frig should serve as an adequate blast container. Certainly better than the spare bedroom closet. What a mess.

These good people deserve a plug for making me laugh. I’d ordered several Zoe Keating CD’s and this is the e-receipt that was sent. Normally I barely glance at these things, but this one managed to make the transaction a little less electronic.

Thanks for your order with CD Baby!

Your CDs have been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with
sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.

A team of 50 employees inspected your CDs and polished them to make
sure they were in the best possible condition before mailing.

Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over
the crowd as he put your CDs into the finest gold-lined box that
money can buy.

We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party
marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of
Portland waved 'Bon Voyage!' to your package, on its way to you, in
our private CD Baby jet on this day, Monday, March 13th.

I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby.  We sure did. 
Your picture is on our wall as "Customer of the Year".  We're all
exhausted but can't wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

Thank you once again,

Derek Sivers, president, CD Baby
the little CD store with the best new independent music
phone: 1-800-448-6369  email: cdbaby@cdbaby.com
https://cdbaby.com

This is also where you can find the excellent tunes from David M. Bailey.

Avast ye scabbers dogs! Shiver me timbers and call me “Sunshine”, matey. Who’d a thought. Arrrrrrr.

You Are Sunshine

Soothing and calm, You are often held up by others as the ideal. But too much of you, and they’ll get burned. You are best known for: your warmth Your dominant state: connecting

What Type of Weather Are You?

And then there’s…

You Are a Boston Creme Donut

You have a tough exterior. No one wants to mess with you. But on the inside, you’re a total pushover and completely soft. You’re a traditionalist, and you don’t change easily. You’re likely to eat the same doughnut every morning, and pout if it’s sold out.

What Donut Are You?

Actually, haven’t had a donut in years. Gave them up until someone invents a wheat-free, sugar-free donut. But then, that wouldn’t be a donut, would it.

Odd thing happened on the way to work. I was accosted by several individuals – either smallish males or bulky females, couldn’t tell really – wearing dark aviator glasses, camel hair trench coats and wide brimmed safari style hats. They were welding fresh, extra hot lattés and threatened to douse me with them if I didn’t meet their demands.

Sizing them up, I figured I could pummel the soy foam out of the lot of them even if they were bulky females. But I thought, “Why waste a half dozen perfectly good lattés?” So, I said, “Let’s hear it. Whadayawant?”

“We need a spokesperson.”, chimed a spooky androgynous voice. “Please”, said another.

“What are you selling?”, I asked.

“Nothing. We need a spokesperson for our country.”

Twenty some years of martial arts training and a sandan rank in Aikido tuned my mind for facing all sorts of dangers – weapons, tempers, politics, Paris Hilton. But it never prepared me for this attack. Here, I was being threatened with a job.

What could I do? I did what any normal, untrained person would do. I panicked and said “Ok, sure.”

The steely cold silence that followed was refreshing.

“You chose wisely,” said spooky androgynous voice as a piece of paper was pushed at me. “Post this”, was the directive with a “Please” voiced by one of the lieutenants. “There will be more,” was the parting comment as the camel haired latté mob scattered like so many coffee beans dropped on a tile floor.

Who am I to dissuade anyone’s attempt at nation building. It’s a sport so popular, even our nation’s President has fielded his own team of nation builders. So here’s my first press release as spokesperson for the new nation of Tapioca Utopia…

Proclamation: We hereby declare the creation and existence of a new country that shall be known as Tapioca Utopia.

Location: Currently, Tapioca Utopia is positioned approximately 2,000 meters above international waters off the coast of Kauai, Hawai’i.

Flag: The Shirt Off Your Back

Currency: Tree Bark – Let it be declared that money does grow on trees.

State Religion: Atheism, or maybe Frisbeetarianism (the belief that when you die your soul goes to the top of the garage and stays there for eternity. Believers live in fear of the coming of the great god Whamo.)

Policies:

• Military buildup can only consist of things that can be purchased at an office supply store – paperclip missiles, staplers, spit wads, rubber bands, etc.
• Red states are illegal. Blue states are illegal. All states shall be purple.

[Ed. I’m out sick so just a couple of quick hits. I thought about sending out some sick jokes but opted to send lame ones instead. But I’m sick, not lame. Say good night Greg.]

A Sunday Drive

Sitting on the side of the highway waiting to catch speeding drivers, a State Police Officer sees a car puttering along at 22 MPH.

He thinks to himself, “This driver is just as dangerous as a speeder!” So he turns on his lights and pulls the driver over.

Approaching the car, he notices that there are five old ladies-two in the front seat and three in the back-wide eyed and white as ghosts. The driver, obviously confused, says to him, “Officer, I don’t understand, I was doing exactly the speed limit! What seems to be the problem?”

“Ma’am,” the officer replies, “you weren’t speeding, but you should know that driving slower than the speed limit can also be a danger to other drivers.”

“Slower than the speed limit? No sir, I was doing the speed limit exactly…Twenty- two miles an hour!” the old woman says a bit proudly.

The State Police officer, trying to contain a chuckle explains to her that “22” was the route number, not the speed limit.

A bit embarrassed, the woman grinned and thanked the officer for pointing out her error.

“But before I let you go, Ma’am, I have to ask… is everyone in this car OK? These women seem awfully shaken and they haven’t muttered a single peep this whole time,” the officer asks with concern.

“Oh, they’ll be all right in a minute officer. We just got off Route 119.”

Best Patients

Five surgeons are discussing who makes the best patients on the operating table. The first surgeon says, “I like to see accountants on my operating table, because when you open them up, everything inside is numbered.” The second responds, “Yeah, but you should try electricians! Everything inside them is color coded.” The third surgeon says, “No, I really think librarians are the best; everything inside them is in alphabetical order.” The fourth surgeon chimes in: “You know, I like construction workers…those guys always understand when you have a few parts left over at the end, and when the job takes longer than you said it would.” But the fifth surgeon shut them all up when he observed: “You’re all wrong. Politicians are the easiest to operate on. There’s no guts, no heart, and no spine, and the head and butt are interchangeable.”

Apparently, former dot-com workers are crowding homeless shelters. Gee, lessons learned: Profitability is a good thing, on-line shopping carts don’t have cranky wheels and venture capital isn’t as real as spare change for a cup of coffee.

RANT MODE = ON

Due to a year long struggle with Java Zen’s (now) former ISP, I have switched to Qwest (Queer Way Everyone Seems to Talk). I heard it would be bad. I knew it would be bad. It is bad. Two weeks later, Qwest (Quickly Whack Every Single Trouble-ticket) still doesn’t have it right. Add to this their shoddy handling of the Code Red worms which keep shutting down Java Zen’s Cisco router (Cisco gets a ding for this, too. In fact, ding Microsoft while your at it since the worms only affect their products. There’s a reason I run Apache on Linux. “Hey Qwest! Pitch the Windows and get a real operating system.”) Short story: Java Zen doesn’t have a static IP address and until it does, you would have to get really, really lucky in guessing the DHCP assigned IP. How much free time to YOU have?

RANT MODE = OFF

Have a nice day.

[Ed. Once again, Auntie Bev strikes gold. Her sources are either better than mine or retirement has afforded her detail time at the search engine. Thanks Auntie. I don’t know from where this originates. I have, however, altered the dialog to fit more closely with the exchange according to my sources. “My sources” being the voices I hear in my head as I slave at the goofy behaviors described below. Some of you may know of my personal Quest to reduce my lawn maintenance time to zero. I’ve been making strides (see the Java Zen Garden), but have a long way to go. Xeriscape is a beautiful thing.]

God’s View on Lawns

GOD: Frank, you know all about gardens and nature, what in the world is going on down there in the U. S.? What in the world happened to the dandelions, violets, thistles and the stuff I started eons ago? I had a perfect no-maintenance garden plan. Those plants grow in any type of soil, withstand drought and multiply with abandon. The nectar from the long lasting blossoms attracts butterflies, honey bees and flocks of songbirds. I expected to see a vast garden of color by now. All I see are patches of green.

ST. FRANCIS: It’s the tribes that settled there, Lord. They are called the Suburbanites. They started calling your flowers “weeds” and went to great lengths to kill them and replace them with grass.

GOD: Grass? But it is so boring, it’s not colorful. It doesn’t attract butterflies, bees or birds, only grubs and sod worms. It’s temperamental with temperatures. Do these Suburbanites really want grass growing there?

ST. FRANCIS: Apparently so, Lord. They go to great pains to grow it and keep it green. They begin each spring by fertilizing it and poisoning any other plant that crops up in the lawn. They miss the animals, though, because they replace them with plastic replications of flamingos, turtles, frogs and such.

GOD: The spring rains and the warm weather probably makes the grass grow really fast. That must make the Suburbanites very happy.

ST. FRANCIS: Apparently not, Lord. As soon as it has grown a little, they cut it-sometimes two times a week.

GOD: They cut it? Do they bale it like hay?

ST. FRANCIS: Not exactly Lord. Most of them rake it up and put it in bags.

GOD: They bag it? Why? Is it a cash crop? Do they sell it?

ST. FRANCIS: No sir, just the opposite. They pay to throw it away.

GOD: Now let me get this straight: They fertilize it to make it grow and when it does grow, they cut it off and pay to throw it away?

ST. FRANCIS: Yes, sir.

GOD: These Suburbanites must be relieved in the summer when we cut back on the rain and turn up the heat. That surely slows the growth and saves them a lot of work.

ST. FRANCIS: You aren’t going to believe this Lord. When the grass stops growing so fast, they drag out hoses and pay more money to water it so they can continue to mow it and pay to get rid of it.

GOD: What nonsense! At least they kept some of the trees. That was a sheer stroke of genius, if I do say so myself. The trees grow leaves in the spring to provide beauty and shade in summer. In the autumn they fall to the ground and form a natural blanket to keep the moisture in the soil and protect the trees and bushes. Plus, as they rot, the leaves become compost to enhance the soil. It’s a natural circle of life.

ST. FRANCIS: You’d better sit down, Lord. As soon as the leaves fall, the Suburbanites rake them into great piles and pay to have them hauled away.

GOD: No way!! What do they do to protect the shrubs and tree roots in the winter to keep the soil moist and loose?

ST. FRANCIS: After throwing the leaves away they go out and buy something called mulch. They haul it home and spread it around in place of the leaves.

GOD: And where do they get this mulch?

ST. FRANCIS: They cut down the trees and grind them up to make mulch.

GOD: Enough!! I can’t take anymore. I think it’s high time I alter the course of a stray meteor or two just to open the eyes of these Suburbanites to what is really important and valuable.

You might be aware that our Sun will be a red giant in about 15 billion years, and its size will increase dramatically beyond the Mercury orbit and we will enter the “crispy critters” phase of our evolution. But do you know that the Andromeda Galaxy will collide with our Milky Way in about 3 billion years? Then another time after 1 billion years to merge themselves. What a mess! I thought there would be some laws against this happening or at the lease some sort of EPA ruling but no such luck. There are some pretty nice simulations in MPEG, and a lot of pictures with some explanation on the web sites listed below.

So the message for today: Party like it’s 2,999,999,999! WooHoo!

https://www.npaci.edu/online/v4.9/galaxies2.html
https://www.cita.utoronto.ca/~dubinski/tflops/

[Ed. Many of you know I co-authored a book called the “Motivation Profile” as a response to the inadequacies of the Meyers-Briggs [personality] type indicator (MBTI). If you’ve ever been “Meyers-Briggs-ed” and bludgeoned by some nincompoop facilitator on a power trip with the results, you’ll appreciate this. For reference, the MBTI results indicate the respondent’s likely preferences on four personality traits or “dimensions”: Extraversion (E) OR Introversion (I), Sensing (S) OR Intuition (N), Thinking (T) OR Feeling (F), Judging (J) OR Perceiving (P)]

ENFJ: “Busybody”

Life’s backseat drivers. They seem to know just what’s wrong with everybody else’s life and have a plan to fix it.

INFJ: “Messiah”

Characterized by the burning desire to change the world, which desperately needs everyone to be NF.

ENFP: “Muckraker”

Creator of hype, distortion, and the perversion of media of information to be wallows of mindless emotionalism.

INFP: “Fanatic”

Always searching for an Answer with a capital A. Unlike the INFJ, they are usually openminded enough to realize the current one isn’t good enough after a few years.

ENTJ: “Tyrant”

Knows better than everyone how things should be done and works tirelessly to obtain the power to make it happen that way.

INTJ: “Crackpot”

All facts which don’t fit their theories are just wrong. The more all-encompassing and less applicable to reality the theories, the better.

ENTP: “Frankenstein”

The salvation of the world is to be found in this new nanotronic frannistan, of which he just happens to have an almost-working model…

INTP: “Nerd”

What? you mean people actually talk to each other using mouths and ears instead of keyboards????

ESTJ: “Stuffed Shirt”

No imagination, no flexibility, no common sense, no capacity for tolerance of others with different priorities.

ISTJ: “Bean Counter”

Like the ESTJ but with less vision.

ESFJ: “Gossip”

Like the Busybody, but characterized by the urge to backstab instead of trying to help.

ISFJ: “Sidekick”

Doesn’t need much meaning in life, just a person (or baby or pet or car) to spend all their time ministering to.

ESTP: “Beer Drinker”

Loud, crude, plays team sports, kisses and tells. These are the people beer commercials are made for.

ESFP: “Clown”

Always the class troublemaker, they have no respect for anybody or anything. Good at snide wisecracks.

ISTP: “Assasin”

Hates people, and is good at killing them. Young ISTP’s are good at killing pictures of people in video games.

ISFP: “Snob”

Revels in the elaborate sensations of wine and paintings and music that are completely indistinguishable to ordinary people. Likes flowers.

Hey there! I’m test driving a new e-mail disclaimer. I’m planning to extend it to about 45K bytes with the eventual goal of altering the tilt and rotation of the Earth due to excessive weight caused by bloated e-mail messages stored on servers around the globe. Check it out and let me know if it strikes fear into the very core of your soul or if it still needs a little work…

IMPORTANT: This e-mail is intended for the use of the individual addressee(s) named above and may contain information that is confidential, privileged or unsuitable for overly sensitive persons with low self-esteem, no sense of humor or irrational religious beliefs. If you are not the intended recipient, any dissemination, distribution or copying of this e-mail is not authorized (either explicitly or implicitly) and constitutes an irritating social faux pas.

Unless the word absquatulation has been used in its correct context somewhere other than in this warning, it does not have any legal or no grammatical use and may be ignored. No animals were harmed in the transmission of this e-mail and it was constructed using 100% recycled electrons. Those of you with an overwhelming fear of the unknown will be gratified to learn that there is no hidden message revealed by reading this warning backwards. However, by pouring a complete circle of salt around yourself and your computer you can ensure that no harm befalls you and your pets. If you have received this e-mail in error, then please refrain from receiving this e-mail again in the future. I mean, REALLY!

And of coure, Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur. (Whatever is said in Latin seems profound)

[Ed. Not sure where this originated from. It arrived as the latest of a zillion forwards across email.]

Let’s visit the Web today! Your SUV (SHUV, as I call them, for Silly Huge Unnecessary Vehicle and pronounced like “shove”) is NOTHING unless you have these.

So go out and upgrade that puny SHUV-ster of yours to something MANLY, MACHO, and MASSIVE. Better yet, turn the beast in for a REAL road machine.

After all, 0-200 mph in 15.0 seconds can’t be wrong.

[Ed. Think You Know Everything? Well, your task this next week is to verify each and every one of the following statements. Ready. Set. GO! NO WAIT! Special thanks to my Aunt Bev for finding these. Ok. GO!]

Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.

Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.

There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.

The average person’s left hand does 56% of the typing.

A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.

There are more chickens than people in the world.

Two-thirds of the world’s eggplant is grown in New Jersey.

The longest one-syllable word in the English language is screeched.”

On a Canadian two dollar bill, the flag flying over the Parliament building is an American flag.

All of the clocks in the movie “Pulp Fiction” are stuck on 4:20.

No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple.

“Dreamt” is the only English word that ends in the letters “mt”.

All 50 states are listed across the top of the Lincoln Memorial on the back of the $5 bill.

Almonds are a member of the peach family.

Winston Churchill was born in a ladies’ room during a dance.

Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable.

There are only four words in the English language which end in “dous”: tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.

Los Angeles’ full name is “El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula”

A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.

An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain.

Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.

In most advertisements, the time displayed on a watch is 10:10

Al Capone’s business card said he was a used furniture dealer.

The characters Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were named after Bert the cop and Ernie the taxi driver in Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

A dragonfly has a life span of 24 hours.

A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.

A dime has 118 ridges around the edge.

It’s impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.

The giant squid has the largest eyes in the world.

In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak.

The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.

Mr. Rogers is an ordained minister.

The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.

There are 336 dimples on a regulation golf ball.

“Stewardesses” is the longest word that is typed with only the left hand.

…now you know everything …You could be a TEENAGER

A collections of stories, etc., is on todays’ menu. Nothing like a cancelled project to free up a bit of time. All that deadline pressure up in smoke. Or was it just replace with frustration? Or is that post project depression? Or… Whatever. I wonder if anyone will hear me pop the cork on this bottle of wine here in my cube?

This item is from the 04/09/01 edition of TechWeb News :

The University of North Carolina has finally found a network server that, although missing for four years, hasn’t missed a packet in all that time. Try as they might, university administrators couldn’t find the server. Working with Novell Inc., IT workers tracked it down by meticulously following cable until they literally ran into a wall. The server had been mistakenly sealed behind drywall by maintenance workers.

[Ed. I’m curious what the operating system was running on that box. Two bits says it wasn’t Windows. Microsoft’s license would have brought the thing down long before the 4 year mark.]

God grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway
The good fortune to run into the ones that I do,
And – the eyesight to tell the difference.

1) I started out with nothing, and I still have most of it.

2) My wild oats have turned into prunes and All Bran.

3) I finally got my head together; now my body is falling apart.

4) Funny, I don’t remember being absent minded…

5) All reports are in; life is now officially unfair.

6) If all is not lost, where is it?

7) It is easier to get older than it is to get wiser.

8) I wish the buck stopped here; I sure could use a few…

9) It’s hard to make a comeback when you haven’t been anywhere.

10) Only time the world beats a path to your door is when you’re in the bathroom.

11) If God wanted me to touch my toes, he would have put them on my knees.

12) When I’m finally holding all the cards, why does everyone decide to play chess?

13) It’s not hard to meet expenses…they’re everywhere.

14) The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.

15) These days, I spend a lot of time thinking about the hereafter. I go somewhere to get something and then wonder what I’m here after.

[Ed. Apologies for the absence – extreme deadlines and such. A quick hit for today. This caught my funny bone given that I’ve been learning a programming language named after the punch line in today’s snippet.]

A little girl goes into a pet shop and asks for a “wabbit”. The shop keeper looks down at her, smiles and says “Would you like a lovely fluffy little white wabbit, or a cutesy wootesly little brown wabbit?”

“Actually”, says the little girl, “I don’t think my python would notice”

Here is a list of the Worlds Thinnest Books:

20) BEAUTY SECRETS by Janet Reno

19) HOME BUILT AIRPLANES by John Denver

18) HOW TO GET TO THE SUPER BOWL by Dan Marino

17) THINGS I LOVE ABOUT BILL by Hillary Clinton

16) MY LIFE’S MEMORIES by Ronald Reagan

15) THINGS I CAN’T AFFORD by Bill Gates

14) THINGS I WOULD NOT DO FOR MONEY by Dennis Rodman

13) THE WILD YEARS – by Al Gore

12) AMELIA EARHART’S GUIDE TO THE PACIFIC OCEAN

11) AMERICA’S MOST POPULAR LAWYERS

10) DETROIT – A TRAVEL GUIDE

9) COLLECTION OF MOTIVATIONAL SPEECHES by DR JACK KEVORKIAN

8) EVERYTHING MEN KNOW ABOUT WOMEN

7) EVERYTHING WOMEN KNOW ABOUT MEN

6) ALL THE MEN I’VE LOVED BEFORE – by Ellen deGeneres

5) MIKE TYSON’S GUIDE TO DATING ETIQUETTE

4) SPOTTED OWL RECIPES by the EPA

3) THE AMISH PHONE DIRECTORY

2) MY PLAN TO FIND THE REAL KILLERS – by O J Simpson

And the World’s Number One Thinnest book

1) MY BOOK OF MORALS by Bill Clinton /co-author Rev Jesse Jackson