Thanks to the power of wikipedia I've taken up a new hobby of researching different kinds of beers. As I sit and listen to marshill, tonight's beverage is a bottle of Butte Creek Organic India Pale Ale that I found in the next town over.
India Pale Ale (IPA) has a unique taste to it. In the first second of your first sip, it tastes a lot like a light bodied American beer, and you think "Ok." But as the beer flows down the hatch, a wave of bitterness overpowers you, and you think "Wow."
I knew crap about the IBU scale (International Bitterness Units) until wonderful Wikipedia explained it. And my suspicions about bitterness were confirmed. An Indian Pale Ale has an IBU of 35~48, while a light American beer could be as low as 5 IBUs. So it's 7~9 times as bitter than the Keystone light you had at your frat house. The bitter taste is still around in my mouth as I type this.
India Pale Ale is good, but maybe not my favorite. The sparkling light beer appearance coupled with the licking sandpaper bitterness makes me a bit unconfortable. Ironically I am a fan of other Pale Ales, like Bass.
Well that's my review of India Pale Ale. Now I have to return to cleaning my room. Seriously dude, It's looking better. Dishes are washed and the clothes box has been emptied and trashed. Progess has a way of feigning ease.
i've spent the majority of today cleaning my pitifully dirty room. it's quite a pigsty and i've managed to fill up two and a half bags of trash already. and i ask the question, i always ask: how can i live with so much shit? i mean, constantly surrounded by stuff that is undeniably trash; old receipts, gum wrappers, old uneaten/half-eaten candy.
more so, why have i always been like this? my mother can attest to the fact that i probably only had a clean room once a year for my whole life. add that up, that's about 25 days of cleanliness. roommates will also be able to fill a book up with stories - like the time i found a 3 month old glass of milk, curdled, next to my bed on a windowsill. anyone who has ridden in my car will know about the collection of mountain dew bottles on the floor (for those in japan it's milk coffee).
i'm beginning to think that i'll never be able to be a cleanly person. doomed to live on a stack of magazines and beer caps. this summer has been so hot (read boring) that i've found myself at nights without the energy or concern to get my futon out of it's closet. so i regress to my caveman roots and sleep on the floor using a box of kleenex and a few white socks as a pillow.
my clothes aren't hung up or put into a closet. rather, massed into a box where i typically choose my outfits based on what is on top of the box. and i'm not really sure if the box is clean clothes or dirty clothes.
but i've cleaned today. and i think my feng shui is on. the natural light in my room is plesant on the tatami. and my guitar strings are clipped. and my closet has room in it for more junk.
i'm going to buy a chair because i'm sick of sitting on the floor. sick to the point of cussing. i feel like a sloth, that rather than standing up and walking quickly where needs to be, i simply can't be arsed to do anything but roll around to my destination.
the haps, jack
what have i been doing? a whole lotta nothing. summer's been pretty boring. i eat, drink and play video games. yesterday my boy Dan and i bought a, kid you not, jug of corn whisky. it's pretty much moonshine. raw and cough-syrupy. and we kill eachother in video games. why do shoot-em up games get dumber in the next version?i'm feeling kind of sick now. got a headache. i just realized it's probably caffeine related. curse my sweet mistress, caffeine!
shamisen master, debi-chan
i played shamisen at my shamisen clan's Annual Performance Show. it was quite a big deal. there were at least 100~150 people there. all waiting for me to play it up. i messed up quite a bit on the shamisen playing, overwhelmed the crowd with my singing, and did good-for-me on my last shamisen piece. a lot of people came up after the show and said "SUGOI!!!"but they all say that if i can use chopsticks, so i can't take any compliments about my japanese-iness seriously.
ok. time to go
alright. time to go. i have to finish cleaning and go to shamisen practice and then rummage up some food. this week i'm cooking deficient for some reason. that's ok. i'm a mill-yen-aire, so i can afford to eat out.UPDATE: i spent most of last night with cold chills shivering on my floor like some kind of heroin addict in withdrawls. it wasn' t caffiene related at all. at one point i brought a stool into my bathroom and set it in front of my toilet and sat there for an hour or so just waiting to vomit, it never happened. i was pretty sick and my boss told me to go home. once home, i performed the ol' Nurse Pat ice pack on the groin trick and brought my fever down. feeling about 80% now.
in 17 you can see a fat me and my eikaiwa, and a hodge podge of various other things.
in 18 you can see wonderful Yuki from kissui.net, the film speed was too slow so only half the roll developed.
now please scroll down to the bottom of the photoblog. you'll see a section for my new camera, the SuperSampler.
supersampler01: this was my first roll out of the box. it came with 100 speed film and on a rainy day that just equals crap. then the worst part. when i went to rewind the film the camera kind of jammed up. sensing a problem i darkened my kitchen best i could and opened it to see if the film had rewound - it hadn't. so what i did was i crawled into my shower, turned the lights off and drew the curtain and opened the camera rewound the film by hand. some of them developed, pretty good if i don't say so myself.
supersampler02: this roll had a similar problem. slow film. and when i was riding around on my bike, i found some water foul and snapped a pictures of them as they wonked away. then as i rewound and started riding again, i dropped my camera and the thing opened up for a brief second. d'oh. outside, in broad daylight. daaang.
supersampler03: this roll is mostly from this past weekend when i went to the Japan Sea with some japanese friends i've made through a relationship in my shamisen class. a long story there, which deserves it's own post. but the damn camera still won't rewind, so i only took one roll at the sea. i'd have taken more, but alas. i have to go get the camera fixed i think.
enjoy! their yours
feel free to use these photos as you wish. if you want larger copies of the ones on the web, simply mail me. please be sure to include a description and the category/roll it was found in. enjoy!
i want this so bad. but bad news is that it's a $349 upgrade. and it's $999 to buy it off the shelf. but using my wizadry of the education store -afterall, i am actually an educator- it turns out i could buy the slightly older (but more current than mine) version for $249 and get a FREE UPGRADE! now i ask you... is it worth $250 to be a geek? you answer me. i've just paid for the wimpkiller.com renewal. even though i got the money, i'm starting to feel it's a bit expensive being a geek. and my chops aren't even that good -thanks for the recent compliments though, everyone.
i'd really love to build something like yongfook's print club. maybe if/when i come back to america i could take a really good web design class to improve my sensibilities... or a Java class - java, class, get it!? har harr.
i also want this bundle o' cameras.
ya ever want to say something on a blog but you can't because you're afraid? yuuuuup.
the third annual "shooting for july" campaign has come to an end. the campaign brought about ups and downs this year ending however in failure. the opening date of next season has yet to be announced, but the team is optimistic and will use everything they've learned over this year to infatuate the masses.
tonight i leave you with a conundrum of biblical proportions: i'm funny, i rock out, i know html, what more does a girl want?
