11.27.07

Looking for more

Posted in Media, Tech at 7:16 pm by Cavorter

One of the things that I like about the Zune is that it has podcast support that is more like how I really use them rather than the way they work with iTunes. It’s not perfect by any stretch (Why can’t I squirt a podcast?) but it’s generally very good. Good enough that I’m looking for more content to listen to.

I have two very different kinds of podcasts that I listen to for very different environments. I find that I can’t listen to people talking without having to pay attention to them, at least if I want to get anything out of it. This is just as true of talk radio as it is of audio books. I also find that after 45 minutes of people yakking I get really, really bored pretty quickly but I find items less than 10min long to not be worth the effort to fiddle with the player to listen to (Not perfect #2: Can’t put them in playlists). Which is really unfortunate since I otherwise would have a couple of really short items that I do like (The Engines of Our Ingenuity being a prime example).

So here’s what I’m currently listening to:

I also really used to love SpaceMusic, but that shifted to a paid subscription model a year or so ago. Though looking on the site now there does appear to be some free stuff again so maybe I’ll take a look at them again.

Any suggestions anyone?

06.30.07

Swing the night away

Posted in Music at 11:25 am by Cavorter

This weekend is the final half of the Twin Cities Hot Summer Jazz Festival, which has quite a few local and national jazz acts performing on mostly free stages in and around Peavey Plaza in downtown Minneapolis. I have been to at least some portion of each of the last four festivals and have been looking forward to this year’s event. I was a little disappointed to note that the festival is a fair bit smaller than it has been in the past, with only a single free stage on Friday night in Peavey Plaza, and two free stages Saturday and Sunday. In comparison, two years ago I remember there being five stages running all day on Saturday and Sunday.

For the most part I have been going to the parts of the festival that I have been able to get to by myself but this year I was fortunate enough to remember to invite my dad early enough that he might not have fully booked his schedule yet, and so he and I had a grand evening last night enjoying the festival and each other’s company.

The day started out somewhat mixed when I ended up having significant car trouble from what has turned out to be a bad tank of fuel. I had stopped at a new Biodiesel pump on the southeast corner of 66th St and Portland Ave in Richfield on Thursday afternoon and not driven much after filling most of the tank. Friday morning on the way into work I noticed that the car was performing very sluggishly and the exhaust was both extremely thick and smelled quite intensely of burning something and the nice people at West Side VW where quite surprised that the engine was able to do much with whatever had been sold to me as fuel. Still, emptying the entire system, clearing the lines, a new fuel filter, and at least some cleaning of the fuel pump will hopefully get things running fine sometime today.

In any case, this did change plans somewhat as I would not be able to meet my dad at my house as had been planned, but it was not a huge deal for him to pick me up at work, and from there were went to my place and took the LRT into downtown for the festival, only an hour later than we had hoped and unfortunately having missed Ginger Commodore. Neither of us had managed to have dinner yet so when we arrived were quite hungry and while it might have been interesting to stay for Dan Kusz’s set on the main stage, the song they were performing wasn’t nearly as interesting as the possibility of food so we popped into Brit’s for a good meal.

Well sated, and having had a chance to talk, we were lucky enough to came out just in time to see the third act for the night, Grace Kelly. Being 15 she definitely lacked some of the polish and long experience that I often see on the main stage, but she made up for all of that and more with raw talent and vivacious dedication to her sax playing, as well as her singing, and even managed to surprise with a couple of tunes she had composed herself.

The last main stage set was the one that I had been looking forward to and Barbara Morrison was even more fun this year than last. Getting to hear her is such a treat with her fabulous stage presence and wicked humor between songs it makes for a great way to end the night. The dancers tend to come out of the woodwork during her set as well and getting to watch some great swing dancers bopping along to the music just made it even more fun.

While somewhat tempted to stay out for the jam session at the Dakota, we decided we had better start heading home since there was still an hour before the jam would even start and it had been a pretty full day. On the way home we did decide to take a slight detour and stopped for adult malts at the Town Talk Diner. Dad had the Mint Condition, my usual favorite, while I tried the Silly Rabbit. I don’t know that I would have it twice, but I can say that it was the living embodiment of an alcohol infused version of the bottom of a bowl of Trix cereal on a Saturday morning watching cartoons. That particularly sweet, sticky, creamy, but slightly grainy flavor and texture are iconic enough to bring back memories though I’m pretty sure it was Kix in my family instead of the extra-sugared Trix.

Looking forward to today’s line-up and I going to stay up for the jam session tonight. I’m always looking for friendly faces so give me a ring if you’re in the area.

Update: Thoughts from day 2 here.

06.26.06

Just when you think you’ve got it all covered

Posted in General at 10:37 am by Cavorter

Yesterday in a fit of total idiocy I managed to fry my skin pretty badly, though there is actually quite a bit of success to this little story. I always _used_ to fry my head really badly in the sun on weekends like this. But now I’ve finally gotten into the habit of reliably wearing a good hat so my head, face, and even my neck are just fine. Slightly overexposed, but really just very slightly.

Unfortunately in my new found confidence I completely flaked on using sunscreen on any of the rest of my exposed skin and so now my knees are throbbing, or at least they are when the aloe gel stuff dries out and I haven’t put any more on just yet. And in a bid to look like a total idiot, I’ve decided to try something interesting: Last night I was having horrible trouble with the gel drying out on my skin so I kept on having to re-apply gel something like every 20-45min. This morning I took a nicely temperature controlled shower to get the sticky remains from last night off and then applied gel afterwards and wrapped it in food grade plastic wrap. I have absolutely no idea if this is a really good idea or not, but I’ve gone nearly a hour without having to re-apply and things are still nicely cooled underneath the wrappings.

Of course, I look like a total… well, headcase I suppose. With forearms and knees encased in clear plastic wrap with somewhat vivid green goo underneath I’m thinking I’m going to skip out on much in the way of public appearances today.

BTW – Just in case any of you were wondering, I was in fact macho enough to try to get pants on and attempt to go to work. It was merely excrusiatingly painful until I tried to walk some stairs and then it became somewhat of a whimper and scream sort of experience. I think calling in sick to work, even if explaining to your boss that it’s because of a sunburn of all things, was probably a very wise decision.

04.28.06

Also found this afternoon

Posted in Soda at 2:02 am by Cavorter

Target’s Archer Farms line of food products now has a “premium” soda available, at least in the Twin Cities market. I saw 4 flavors today at a non-SuperTarget close to work: Sarsparilla, Ginger Beer, Strawberry Creme, and Diet Peach. I picked up a 4pack of all but the Diet and should have had a chance to taste all of them by the weekend. The ingredients do list sugar instead of HFCS, so I have some hope that it might be at least drinkable and if it’s done by the same people who make their “Italian Soda” line of beverages there’s a strong chance there will be at least one good flavor in there.

03.27.06

Programmable Soda Bottles – Gizmodo

Posted in Food, Soda, Soda Brewing, Tech at 9:00 am by Cavorter

Gizmodo has an interesting little tidbit about Programmable Soda Bottles. Really neat idea, but I bet the flavors are going to be horrible.

10.03.03

I got a pleasant surprise via email the other day:…

Posted in Soda Brewing at 3:13 pm by Old Blog

I got a pleasant surprise via email the other day: There are people who actually read this! While this wasn’t the first person to mail me, it has been awhile since I’ve heard from anyone and now I feel somewhat bad about not keeping it up to date.

So, here’s the big update:

  • Some days I wonder if I actually read anything. Case in point, the extracts that I have got (and have been using) are not the Gnome brand, but are in fact Old Fashioned brand. Assumptions, assumptions. Anyway, I am pretty happy with the Old Fashioned extracts. The one small issue that I have is that there is a slight pickle-like aftertaste that I think is probably associated with using some sort of vinegar (or a derivative) as a preservative. Honestly, the only other person who has been able to taste it is another big time foodie so it’s basically just a nit. And it isn’t even a bad thing, just a thing mostly.
  • The batch that I last mentioned here used ~6grams of of the Nottingham ale yeast. On September 6, I produced a batch with the following ingredients:

    The yeast bloomed very nicely with a rather large head after only 10 minutes. I was going to use Nottingham again, but they were out at Northern Brewer and they said that the Windsor is very similar, which I think was very true. I don’t know if I could tell the difference after brewing which one had been used. After bottling, the batch carbonated decently in only 42 hours! After sampling that bottle, I refrigerated the rest of the batch at ~50 hours and it was _very_ carbonated. To be quite honest, I think this was my first completely successful batch. The flavor was good, the sweetness was almost perfect (though maybe just a touch over sweet), and the carbonation was actually almost too much for me. Taking a sip from the early bottles would get you a mouth full of foam as all the carbonation tried to release as it came into contact with saliva. As several people noted, it was excellent belching soda. However, there was still a bit too much yeast flavor, even after 2 weeks in the fridge. I have 1 bottle remaining that I’ll be opening tonight to see how it’s aged. My notes on the existing bottles indicate that 5 days in the fridge was probably optimum for settling as the yeast flavor dropped precipitously until day 5 when it has remained almost constant ever since.

  • On September 30, I put down a new batch, hoping to finally reduce the yeast taste to a better level. This recipe was:

    It’s been carbonating for 36 hours at this point and I’m planning on tasting one of the bottles tonight before I go to bed. The first try with the yeast didn’t bloom very well (I think the water was too cold) so I had to do another bloom using filtered tap water. I’m a little worried about that, but I think it should come out okay.

  • I’ve been playing with ideas for ingredients for a non-extract soda. My first attempt will be either tonight or tomorrow morning using 2oz of TeaSource’s Red Berries herbal tea blend. It’s a really lovely, sweet, and fruity tea that I think will make a fantastic soda if the iced tea I’ve made with it previously is any indication. I don’t think that the C&H Dark Brown sugar is going to work as well with it since I think the molasses flavors will cover up some of the subtlety inherent in the tea, so last night I went to the Seward Co-Op and got a couple of pounds of bulk organic raw cane sugar. I’m still not sure how much I’m going to use for this batch just yet though.
  • I’ve been asked to supply some homebrew soda for the Supercon room party at Icon next weekend! The Fan Goh for Icon this year happens to be the new Supercon parties head and he’s having a panel on homebrewing on Friday night of the con. Immediately after the panel, he’s coming down to host the room party and will be showing off several examples of the panel discussion. I’m planning on bringing the Birch Beer batch that I put down this week, and I’m looking to do a ginger beer/ale/soda of some sort to fill out the selection.
  • I’m working on formulating my own root beer recipe, and I think I’ve come upon an unusual ingredient that will add a lot of character: African Honeybush. I’ve been drinking it for awhile from various places, and TeaSource has started carrying it as well so I got a few ounces and I’m going to start pairing it up with sassafras, sarsaparilla, vanilla, and anise/star anise to see what I can come up with. One of the places that I’ve been drinking it very regularly is at Midori’s Floating World Cafe just up the street. They have a drink they call African Cloud Tea that is honeybush tea, palm fruit, and something else that is really wonderful. The other ingredient that I’m toying with using might be nutmeg as well, but I think I’ll wait till I’ve played with the other stuff a bit first.

So, that’s the current stuff. Quite a bit, but I’ve been having some fun. Hopefully I’ll remember to post early about the new Birch Beer batch, and the Red Berries batch.

05.27.03

What a weekend! The party on Saturday went really …

Posted in Soda at 4:37 pm by Old Blog

What a weekend! The party on Saturday went really well and we drank a LOT of good soda and it seemed like everyone got a nice sugar buzz going for most of the evening. Thankfully there were only a couple of flavors that were, er, unpalatable.

Unfortunately among them was one of the Journey Foods root beer flavors: Shenandoah Sassafras Root Beer. The problem is not that they use Star Anise as one of the ingredients, it’s that they used a LOT of Star Anise as one of the ingredients. The first comment from someone who tried it was, “Tastes like raisins.” Not that raisins are a bad thing, but it was just a very off taste and not very pleasant.

The other unsuccessful one was the Steap line of sodas. All of them are based on Green Tea, which doesn’t sound like a bad thing until you taste one. Ick. Someone said that their sweetie might like them and so took the rest home to see what happens. Good riddance and I hope they get some enjoyment out of them. I did try both the Cola and the Root Beer and both were pretty disgusting.

OTOH – on the good advice of someone close, I found some Sangria flavored Mexican sodas that were quite good. One of them was mostly grape soda flavored, but the other actually tasted like good sangria, but without the alcohol. [Now I just have to get around to calling her today after I didn't get a chance to this last weekend like I was supposed to. :-( ] Another really pleasant surprise was the Journey Foods Carribean Creme Soda, which had a very nice flavor of toasted coconut. It tempered the usual oversweet flavor of cream soda very well and was a big hit. I’ll have to stock that in the fridge more often.

I didn’t end up getting either the Boylan’s or the 1919, but I think I more than made up for it with the rest of the selection. I’ll post a link to the picture I took of the entire selection arrayed on the dining room table. The chicken curry turned out really well too (though needed a touch more salt) thanks to the lesson on using chicken thigh meat instead of breast meat I learned a few weeks ago in Chicago.

I’ll try and come up with a revised list of the stuff that I actually did end up getting later this week.

05.21.03

So I’m having a little party thing on Saturday nig…

Posted in Soda at 4:15 pm by Old Blog

So I’m having a little party thing on Saturday night (5/24/2003) and I’m putting together a bunch of odd and interesting soda’s to get. The list so far:

If anyone wants to drop by, let me know. I’ll be serving Chicken Curry at ~7pm.