Dan Conley

Yesterday we went to my mother in law’s for a birthday party. We were excited to see that there was a pinata hanging in the dining room, until we realized that we were not six years old and as such probably wouldn’t be allowed to take shots at it with a stick.

When we lamented this fact to my mother in law, she said, ‘You don’t hit it.’

…what?

‘That’s too violent. You pull the strings at the bottom and one of them spills out the candy.’

This practice, done in the name of ‘safety,’ has taken the once proud and noble pinata and turned it into something I have no urge to ever partake in. Isn’t it a long standing Mexican tradition to hit things with sticks while being disoriented?

No wonder no one watches America’s Funniest Home Videos anymore! A third of their subject matter has just been outlawed, leaving only ‘kid spits on birthday candles’ and ‘man gets hit in crotch.’

We’re not going to take this sitting down. Oh no. Dave’s birthday is in a little under two months and we will be constructing a Buzzlegum. He will be 24 and it will be awesome.

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(via icanhascheezburger)

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I’m doing my best to, finally, get back into — very into — beer. Tomorrow I’ll be stopping into Niagara Tradition, though I can’t decide if I should get an extract kit to get back on the horse or jump straight into partial mash. We’ll see, I suppose.

So, in preparation, I headed to the closest Consumer’s Beverage in the hopes of getting a shiny new growler full of whatever looked tasty at the time. When I got there, though, I realized that unlike the Village Beer Merchant‘s $2.98 growlers, Consumer’s were $20*. Um, I’ll take a six pack please.

After wandering around for a bit I finally found a nice balance between something that looked good, that I thought would be good that night, and that wasn’t too expensive. I settled on Dogfish Head’s Raison D’etre, ‘A deep mahogany ale brewed with Belgian beer sugars, green raisins & a sense of purpose.’ You’re telling me I can drink a play on words? To the check out counter!

When I got home from the gym (to partake in my standard late night yogurt/apple eating, Daily Show/Colbert Report viewing and beer drinking) I took out a bottle and realized that I had no idea what kind of glass to put it in. I settled on a pint glass, but after smelling its spicy/fruity aroma and realizing it said ‘Belgian’ on the bottle I decided I should probably have used something else. The first sip, which was even spicier than it smelled, confirmed that I had screwed up. This tasted like something that belonged in a snifter.

Additionally, it tasted like something that was much more alcoholic than a standard beer. A quick re-check of the bottle revealed that yes, it was 8% abv. A check of the Dogfish Head’s website confirmed that, also yes, it should ideally be poured into a ‘goblet or snifter.’ It was nice to see that, while I’m still learning, I can still get a few things right when flying blind.

So, while not at all what I was expecting (maybe some sort of slightly fruity ale?), the Raison D’Etre was still very enjoyable. It’s not something you chug down: it definitely demands your attention. Even so, as something to savor at night (rather than drinking absent-mindedly), it does a damn good job. I’ll be enjoying the remaining five bottles, that’s for sure.

* In all fairness, I think it’s because the VBM’s are clear and Consumer’s were the brown flip-tops; the same thing at Niagara Tradition is actually $25

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I get very into things that I’m working on. You could say ‘obsessed’ if you’d like to water down the word, but I like to settle for ‘very into.’ Generally, one of two things happens: it settles down into a quietly roaring interest or quickly burns out. Either way is fine except for when your dining room table has books all over it because of the third time I decided to catalog all our books into Delicious Library, no really this time I’m totally doing it.

Yesterday was particularly quick. Here is the rough series of events:

• See the Lifehacker post How to Turn Your PC Into a DVD Ripping Monster (‘Ooh, imagine not having to have our DVD collection by the TV!’)
• Rip Angel Season 2 Disc 3 onto our computer (‘Sorry the Media Center quality is so low honey, I’m using a lot of resources’)
• Try to play the rip via our 360 (‘Wait it doesn’t work’)
• Use a different program, rip The Princess Bride (‘This will work better’)
• Try to play the rip via our 360 (‘Wait come on’)
• Try the first program again using different settings (‘This will work better’)
• Try to play the rip via our 360 (‘Pfff whatever!’)
• Look into third party addons like My Movies (madness has taken my ability to speak)
• Begin to install My Movies but then realize it doesn’t fix the problem (general salivating on self)
• Give up briefly, then realize there may be another way (‘Hey those 400 disc changers on Amazon have to be dropping in price!’)
• 5:42: Experiment ends (/lemon_jelly)

It’d be nice to have complete access to my DVDs, but considering the time and effort involved, it’s not at all worth it. Media Center Edition will play rips with no problem, but due to (I suppose) potential copyright issues they don’t allow rips to be streamed. I came across a fix involving renaming the VOB rip, but that only works if you don’t mind not being able to fast forward or rewind (and apparently it also crashes).

Besides, I obviously didn’t think this through. Could I really justify devoting 4-8 gigs of hard drive space to Anger Management?

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I bit the bullet and downloaded ecto. By the time the 21 day free trial is up I’ll either have the required $18 or be able to say ‘eh, it’s not that great.’

So far I like that you can add and remove categories from the editor (another thing Deepest Sender doesn’t do). Let’s see how it handles images by talking about Beamish, shall we?

Now, of course, I have to deal with Beast Blog’s only real downside: a really, really thin content box. I could fix it easily enough, of course, but that would take more effort than I’m liable to include

I haven’t had Guinness in a while, so I can’t compare directly, but Beamish is certainly a stout. (Damn, why don’t I just hand myself that BJCP certification now?) I think I’m more of a fan of porters, at least over Irish Stouts, because they have ‘dark’ and ‘bitter’ down but — in my horribly inexpert opinion — don’t have as much in the flavor department. Of course not all stouts are Irish, and I’ll drink it if you give it to me.

Beamish cans also have the nitrogen widget that Guinness bottles do, though Beamish advises that I pour ‘in one smooth motion’ (paraphrased) while I believe Guinness says ‘drink straight from the bottle.’ I haven’t bought it since I started using glassware, so I’m not sure if Guinness pours well.

Not being an expert on the style, there’s really not much I can say. Again, this post was mostly an excuse to use ecto’s Flickr integration. I have a problem with Guinness’ popularity, though — I consider it a brand more than a beer — and as such my counter-culture tendencies, or at least my pretensions, mean that if given the choice I’d probably go with Beamish.

Rating: 4 stars out of my ass

(see what I did there?)

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There are two important things to know about me:

1. I am lazy
2. I am cheap

So, I want to be able to blog easily, but have whatever I’m using not cost anything. I’ve been using Deepest Sender, as I’ve mentioned a few times, but I think I may actually be outgrowing it. For one, now that I added a second blog (more on that when it’s ready), the fact that danconley.net auto-logs-in is annoying. You’d think that unchecking ‘log in automatically’ would do the trick, but you would be sadly mistaken.

Also, I’d like to start using more pictures in posts. Maybe not as much here, as I don’t need to illustrate my self-involved delusions, but while the browser admin panel for WordPress allows me to upload images and then insert them, DS does not. Now I understand what Lifehack.org meant when they said Firefox blogging extensions had ‘no good image support.’

While I have a PC as my ‘main’ computer, I do most of my blogging from my Macbook and so any downloadable application would need to work with OS X. But not 10.5, because point 2 up there prevents me from upgrading.

I’ve checked out ecto, as I’ve heard about it a few times, but while $18 is cheap it’s certainly not free, and that is after all what I’m striving for.

Does anyone know of any good — or at least decent — blogging programs that will let me upload images easily? Of course I’m worried that that will mean ‘FTP’ which is a no go: this server is locked down too tightly for any of that port 21 crap. I may be stuck with what I have, or spending some money; I have no problem paying for something if I’ll use it, so biting the bullet re: ecto isn’t out of the question as long as it’s very, very good.

Or I could suck it up and just use CyberDuck to upload things myself

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I’ve considered using Google Reader for my blog reading, but ditched it because (at last check) you couldn’t order entries oldest first. I figure that there may be updates and so on, so I want to read things in the order they were posted.

The only thing I didn’t like about Bloglines is that when I start reading a site, every post is marked read. This means if I don’t have time to read everything Jessamyn West has had to say over the past week I won’t read, which leads to me not reading a bunch of blogs I’m otherwise interested in.

So why has no one read my mind and told me that the Bloglines Beta (the first ‘B’ is an uppercase beta: I see what you did there) does exactly what I want? If there’s a post I have to hit j to highlight it to have it marked read, but eh. Definitely worthwhile.

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I just realized that, during the course of my life, my dad has had the following hobbies:

• Scuba diver
• Clown
• Magician
• Comic Book dealer
• Old time radio dealer/researcher-type-guy

Among others. Suddenly my dabbling has a genetic context (currently I podcast, play video games, do freelance web coding, plan on brewing beer again sometime soon and will be taking up drumming as soon as I can afford it).

It’s a good thing I like my parents, because it’s scary how alike we are.

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I’ve never been among the rabid fans of Guinness.

It’s a decent beer, and I do like it, but I feel that it’s a bedfellow with the band Tool in the ‘Good But Not As Great As People Make It Out To Be’ category. It’s a solid stout, to be sure, and I’d drink it over any non-craft brewed domestic beer any day, but… I’ve recently been going through a case of Bass: I’m enjoying it quite a lot, as I’ve been in the mood for a pale ale/bitter for a while now, but I wouldn’t go around buying t shirts, hats, posters and so on with a giant red triangle on it.

Side note: The Bass logo is brilliant. Forget an abstract crown or a harp; they use something any four year old can draw.

So on the one hand I feel as though I should be chastising all the frat boys who get to act like they know something about beer because it’s like drinking a meal, bro. On the other, at least they’re drinking something approaching good beer. So I suppose the issue boils down to this: does liking something because it’s cool detract from its quality? If I hand someone a porter and their response is ‘It’s sort of like Guinness,’ would it be overly snobby to think less of them for having such a mainstream baseline?

(I suppose my answer in either case could be, ‘Well yeah, but this is probably brewed with chocolate malt as opposed to roasted barley, which is totally different!’)

This train of thought was brought up a few times in the past few days: the first was when I saw a sign for Beamish, another Irish Stout, at the Sterling Place Tavern on Hertel and Sterling (if you’re ever in Buffalo on a Friday, you have to try their fish fry, and take the excellent beer selection as a bonus). I’ve been meaning to try Beamish to see how it compares to Guinness and I suppose tonight would be a good time to try it (assuming Wegmans carries it).

The other is when tiny sent me a Fyreball to a blog that tries to figure out why people claim Guinness is better in Ireland. There are a few interesting points, but they also get a few things wrong and of course I’m full enough of myself to post a lengthy comment detailing what and why.

Finally, St. Patrick’s Day is #89 on the list of Stuff White People Like. The post is the usual mix of legitimate satire and things I’m willing to overlook for the sake of humor. On saying that Guinness tastes better in Ireland:

This comment will elicit an immediate and powerful response of people agreeing with your valuable insight. This statement also has the additional benefit of humiliating the members of your party who have not been to Ireland (and thus cannot confirm this proclamation). Having not traveled to Ireland and consumed a beer that is widely available in their hometown and throughout the world, they will immediately be perceived as provincial, uncultured, and inferior to you.

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I always start out wanting to catalog the hell out of things, and then gradually taper off. Dave, for instance, showed me yesterday that if you have all the actors entered into the movies in your Delicious Library then you can do a search for ‘Christian Bale’ and see what movies you own that he’s in (side note: only A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Batman Begins, American Psycho and Equilibrium? For shame!).

I’ve been trying to get back into the ‘Using nifty programs and such’ mode, which included reading Lifehacker again (I generally scroll through their GTD and productivity posts, but there are some gems). The most recent podcast linked to the Cranking Widgets Blog, which has a great piece on using smart playlists to fill your iPhone with new music each time you sync.

I had a basic version of this playlist; actually, I think I still do, though I haven’t used it in a while. It was ’50 songs that I’ve never listened to,’ to which I really need to add the ‘Skipped less than 3 times’ clause because I manually had to remove stuff I didn’t want to listen to. It also means I need to get back into the habit of using genres, at least for Comedy and Interview (additionally, I have to finish Robert Anton Wilson Explains Everything).

Of course my iPod is 30 gigs, which is enough space for all my music, and by the time I get an iPhone they’ll hopefully have a larger capacity (and be cheaper, pretty please?), but smart playlists have always been one of those instances where I understand their power but have never bothered to harness it.

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