I started brewing beers at home a little over a year ago. Having no real experience before starting, I did what most people do in this day and age and tried to read as much as I could on the internet as I could before starting. While many people start with extract brewing, I decided at the time to just dive right in with all-grain brewing. Like most beginners, I made many mistakes when I started. But over time I have slowly improved the areas where I felt most deficient and have generally been making better and better beers (at least in my mind). Like most home brewers, the part of the process ...

I was out the other day having a few beers at a local watering hole. I actually don't really drink all that much nowadays, something I'm pretty thankful for. The thing is, when you work in high technology, there are always a lot of opportunities after work to go schmooze at a pub with your bosses or whoever is in town negotiating a deal. Strangely enough, I've never liked drinking all that much. The irony of that is that me and my friends were pretty well known for our drinking prowess in university. In fact, I'm still sort of known as the guy who can pound back an insane about of liquor, at least ...

Wash, rinse, repeat - that's my life these days. Wake up, work, code, sleep. I eat once and a while, although considering I had a bit of cream cheese at midnight and called it supper, I think I need some drastic improvements in that department. My thermostat in my apartment shows 27C at 9am, which obviously makes it rather difficult to sleep. Actually, sleep in general is pretty difficult these days. I have a little bottle of Zopiclone that I keep around for special occasions, and even though it helps me sleep, it usually makes me a groggy mess in the morning. So in that department I am sort ...

One of the strange things I find about getting older is the fact that I no longer enjoy the same things I used to. Board games are a good example -- I just plain don't like them these days. I don't mind sitting around a camp fire and playing asshole for eight hours, but I can't be bothered with something like monopoly. Another strange change is that I don't really enjoy drinking or bars that much these days. I had a fairly crazy university life, and somehow (despite being in a dormitory filled with nerds and scholarship recipients) ended up on a floor full of people that liked to party hard. I ...

Yes people, today is a great day in TV land. Jack Bauer, aka Kiefer Sutherland, was released from jail after serving 48 days for drunken driving. Now I gotta say -- getting in a car while loaded is a dumb thing to do. I can openly admit I did it as a young adult once and a while, something as a grown adult I now look back on and realize how dumb it was. The trick is of course to plan ahead, otherwise you'll find yourself stuck in the boonies with no way home. Now, I just refuse to get into situations like that, or at least have the means to pay for a long cab ride if I have to. I do understand ...

Raymi promised me a tipsy iChat later with her and Phil, which means I need to start drinking. I have so much wine at my place it's not even funny. Somewhere on the order of 25 bottles I think. But, I'm a bit tired of wine lately. Wall Of Poison So, I think I'm going to go for rum and diet coke, which is pretty much my drink of choice if I'm at a pub these days. Which would you choose? ...

The first news of the day is that yesterday after work I picked up a new set of glasses. I still haven't finalized all the insurance papers that will let me get a refund on the first pair, but at least I'm no longer without a pair of glasses. The ladies at the eyeglass center were nice enough to remind me to remove them whenever I decided to step out, have a few drinks and then fall down. Unfortunately, in the process of falling the first time, I seemed to have gotten the world's largest splinter. To make it worse, it entered at the tip of my finger, and proceeded to go down the length of the ...