Those not interested in boring home-brewing stuff can stop reading here…

After a brief interlude for that 4-letter word I like to refer to as “WORK”, I arrived home to find that my new Stout had finished fermenting, and was ready to be kegged. Space being at a premium (my daughter and I had made Ginger Ale over the weekend), I had to finish the last of the Witbier to make room for it (I’d actually planned this, as there were only a few pints of the Wit left anyway). Armed with my new toys, a proper Racking Cane and the correct sized hosing (last time I accidentally used the 3/16 stuff, and it took a half hour to transfer 5 gallons of beer from the fermenter to the keg, with me holding the hose in the fermenter the whole time). This time I kicked back and enjoyed the last of the Wit while the beer and the laws of physics did all the work.

The stuff came in today for a nice Irish Red, and it was about all I could do to keep myself from brewing it up so there’d be something to keep the newly empty fermenter from being lonely. Strangely enough, cleaning out the dregs of yeast (trub) from the bottom of the fermenter reminded me of hot late August mornings at the Sig house after a rush party, as countless half-drunken beers slowly eroded the Tasty-Freeze cups they were served in.

Sometime this week, the Kegerator should have its 3^rd line hooked up and pouring. I’ve picked up an extra quick disconnect so I can hook up a picnic hose for those times when I don’t feel like hooking up the entire tap tower. The end of the beer lines (with quick disconnects) are now on the outside of the Kegerator, which also has a new distribution block with individual shutoffs for the CO2, as I finally got around to drilling the hole in the side, praying that I wouldn’t hit a Freon line (still cold inside, so it seems I didn’t). Once I hook up the 3^rd set of keg connectors, the Kegerator part of the operation is complete.

The mobile base for the imported ceramic tap tower is coming along nicely. I had it just about finished, but decided it was too big (24” x 16”), and I’d never find anything it’d fit on when it wasn’t in the gazebo or in the dining room, so I had to re-engineer it a bit (now it’s 16” x 14”). This left some less than perfect edges, so I decided to trim around the top with some oak corner molding (which has the added benefit of holding the drip tray nicely in place), and around the bottom some shoe molding (adding a little extra stability, and counterpointing the trim on the top edge). Despite having a nice compound miter saw in the basement, I cut the trim with an old back saw and miter box. I’ll need to do a bit of finish sanding to get the edges perfect, and on they go! Then it’s time for staining and finishing.

Instead of drinking at the venue’s parking lots, many are meeting at parkway rest areas, local parks and other areas to drink prior to the concerts. Not only are these locations totally unsupervised (compared to the venue’s parking lots, which is supervised by the NJ State Police), but it also puts large number of potentially drunken drivers on the road, driving from these new tailgate locations to the venue. Isn’t it better if these people are going to drink (and they are) to have them do so in a safe and secure location?

The underage problem can easily be addressed the way it is at most venues. Set up a location in each parking lot (there are 2 satellite lots at PNC in addition to the main lot) where patrons can go, have their ID checked, and be issued wristbands, which are affixed to them at that time. Then, the State Police have a much easier time patrolling for underaged drinking. No wristband, and you’ve got a drink, you get checked out. You’ve got a wristband, and you’re not causing any problems, no problem. Obviously anyone acting drunk and disorderly, no matter what their age, should be arrested.

This wouldn’t even cost the Turnpike Authority (the operators of the venue) any money. The wristbands can be (and are at many other venues) provided by the beer distributors and/or other event sponsors. I’m sure an organization such as MADD would provide staffing for the booths handing out the wristbands, as they should be eager to help prevent underaged drinking. Wristbanded patrons will also make it much easier for the venue’s own beer sales staff to sell only to those who’re of legal drinking age.

As it is, they’re simply punishing innocent people for the actions of a small minority. I purchased tickets to a concert at a venue where tailgating was permitted. Now it isn’t. Shouldn’t the venue refund my money? Obviously, as they’ve changed their policies which directly affect my enjoyment of their facility, and in a negative fashion, they should be liable for a full refund of all my costs to acquire tickets to the show at their venue. Either that, or they should allow the show to go on as originally advertised, and only prohibit tailgating at those shows for which tickets have not previously been sold.

I’m thinking that somewhere in there is something which represents a breach of contract. Even prohibiting drinking in the parking lots may not actually be legal (to this point, no one of drinking age has actually been ticketed). Supposedly the ticket will not be for drinking, but for “failure to follow signage”. Now, what if that signage isn’t legally enforceable (remember, alcohol IS legal at the venue, as is drinking it on premesis if you’re of legal age)? Do you have any legal obligation to obey signage that isn’t legally enforceable? I think not, and I think that’s why nobody is getting any tickets, unless they’re breaking some other law (such as drinking underage).

I’d actually wanted to get some for a while, but this was as good a time as any. We picked out a 10 gallon starter tank, filter, etc. at Wal-Mart, and along with 3 goldfish (2 gold fan-tails and one calico comet) from the same source, we went home to set it up.

Everything went fine for a few days, then it looked like the 2 fantails had gotten into a fight or something, as their fins were damaged. A day later, one became a floater. Acting quickly, before our 4 year old noticed anyone was missing, I picked up a replacement at Petsmart, and also a nice white fantail with a red spot on its head.

Shortly afterwards, the other gold fantail went the way of its original brethren. This time our 4 year old noticed, but I told her the fish was sick, and I’d have to take it to the fish doctor. Back to Petsmart, another gold fantail, and I also picked up a black moore as well. About a week later, the black moore started acting funny and not eating, so I isolated him for a few days, and his appetite picked up again, However, after rejoining the community, it was only a matter of a few days before he too was a floater. Unfortunately, Petsmart didn’t have any more (either there was a big run on them, or all of theirs got sick and died as well, as they had over a dozen in the tank when I bought mine). Off to the “fish doctor” it went. A few days later I managed to get a replacment at the Petsmart in Eatontown, and since then, everyone has lived happily ever after.

Over the last year, the fish have grown quite a bit, and were much too large for their original 10 gallon tank. I finally found a good deal for a 26 gallon bowfront on craigslist, complete with filter, light, top and several other accessories, so yesterday it was time for the fish to move.

First, I had to take all the gravel out of the old tank, as I wanted to clean and re-use it in the new one. Of course, there was all sorts of junk down in the gravel that the vacuum doesn’t get out, so by the time the gravel was gone, the old tank was a horrible murky mess. As most of the junk was actually food, the fish probably enjoyed this, but it didn’t look good.

I put down all the air hose and bubblers in the new tank, then the old gravel mixed with another 25 lb. bag, and added in the old decorations as well as some of the ones I got with the new tank. It took a LOT more water than the old one did (the dish is in there so the gravel doesn’t get disturbed when the water is poured in).

Finally, I added some of the water from the old tank (despite it looking horrible, it contained necessary bacteria which helps break down the fish’s waste. It’d take at least a week for such bacteria to grow on their own without the old water). Then it was time for the fish to move (they didn’t really like that part). However, they seem much happier in their new home, with much more room to swim around, and more things to play with.

Watching (or listening) to a game called by Rizzuto was like watching a game with your Grandfather, rather than just one called by an announcer. He added a personal touch, and really made the listener feel they were part of the proceedings. Whether it was taking a break in the commentary to offer birthday greetings to a listener, to update everyone on his latest visits to his grandkids, or to talk about some cannoli’s that someone had brought by the broadcast booth for him, he provided a direct connection between himself and the audience which no other announcer could ever match.

Even his miscues were legendary. Ever the Yankee fan, every long fly ball had a shot at going out of the park, and his sadness when it didn’t matched your own. “Oh, Holy Cow, that’ ones outta here. No, wait, he caught it at the warning track. Can you believe that? I thought for sure it was gone”. Once broadcasting partner Bill White noticed an annotation on Scooter’s scorecard that he didn’t recognize. “Hey, Scooter, what’s that “WW” for?” “Oh, that means I wasn’t watching” was Rizzuto’s unabashed response.

Ever a humble, unassuming man, that was part of his charm. He would greet a stranger on the street with the same warmth he would a longtime colleague. His frequent recollections and anecdotes of his playing days with the Yankees that he peppered his commentary with made you feel you had a connection not just with the team you were watching on the field, but with all the long and proud Yankee history, especially important because for many of those years, the teams on the field simply weren’t that good. Yet Phil, like all fans, believed deep down that somehow they’d pull out a win every day. And, like all fans, he’d be disappointed if they didn’t. He shared himself and his emotions with his listeners as if we were all part of a large, extended family.

I suppose that was his greatest gift, above any of his performances on the baseball field; the ability to turn hundreds of thousands of people who he never actually met into what felt like close friends, if even for just a few hours a day. And I suppose that’s why so many of us are so saddened by his passing. Goodbye, Scooter, you entered our homes and our hearts, and you will be missed greatly.

Despite being the band’s bass player on every album it ever released, apparently Anthony is still persona-non-grata with Eddie, I guess because he actually wanted to go out and play music while Eddie wanted to wallow in a puddle of drunken self-indulgence. Does anybody else think this thing has a volatility level just somewhere above Mr. Creosote? Just one “wafer thin mint” and Eddie and Dave will be at each other’s throats, while Wolfie tries to eat half the audience. Sorry, but this is shaping up to be more like a bad reality TV show than a concert tour.

Supposedly Wolfie has picked out his favorite 24 songs (I guess from VH’s first 6 albums, as Dave doesn’t have any rights to anything after that). Apparently Eddie’s brain still isn’t right after all that booze, if he’s letting a teenager pick out songs written and performed long before his birth, as well as replace an established and talented musician in the band. Get the kid a garage, an amp, and some friends, don’t drag him out on tour to blow any illusions he might still harbor that his dad might be a decent human being.

Of course, the questions remain 1) Do they actually have 24 songs on those 6 albums worth playing in concert (”Big Bad Billy is Sweet William now”? As popular as 1984 was, it gets a little thin on concert material after “Jump”, “Panama” and “Hot for Teacher”) and 2) Can these rollicking bags of ego and fun get through a complete 24 song set night after night? I’m betting “no”.

Of course, what sort of Blog would be complete if I didn’t put together my own set list to compete with Wolfie’s, having actually been there and heard the music. In no particular order (well, actually, from 1st album to 6th): “Runnin’ with the Devil”, “Eruption” (does this actually count as a song?), “Ain’t talkin’ bout love”, “Jamie’s Cryin’”, “Feel your love tonight”, “Ice Cream Man” (Little dreamer or Atomic Punk would work as well, but let’s leave room for some stuff from their other albums), “Dance the night away”, “D. O. A.”, “Beautiful Girls”, “And the cradle will rock”, “Everybody wants some”, “Mean Street”, “Push Comes to Shove”, “So this is love”, “Where have all the good times gone” (by the end of the tour, won’t this become poignant?), “Pretty Woman”, “Dancing in the Streets”, “Little Guitars”,  “Happy Trails” (to end the show), “Panama”, “Jump”, “Hot for Teacher”. Hmm…, 22, maybe we’ll throw “Little Dreamer” and “Atomic Punk” back into the mix after all.

Just look at the guy. Put a fork in him, and I bet he pops. AFAIK, no amount of working out gives you a bigger head, only three things will. 1) getting fat. While Barry’s bigger, I bet there isn’t much scientifically engineered fat on him. 2) Elephantitis. Worked for Joseph Merrick, but I’m willing to bet that Barry isn’t afflicted. 3) Vast amounts of highly illegal Human Growth Hormone. So Barry cheats his way into the record books. Big Freakin’ Deal! Hopefully he’ll drop dead soon so someone can cut him in half and count the rings, or however they’d do an autopsy on a freak like this. Then when it can conclusively be proven that he’s a cheater, he can be stricken from the record books.

Heck, we really don’t have to wait that long. Bud can strike him from the record books right now if he wants to. Kennsaw Mountain Landis (Charles Commisky’s good buddy) struck all of Shoeless Joe Jackson’s records from the books, despite him being cleared of all charges in a court of law. So Bud doesn’t even have to wait for a conviction, he simply has to have the conviction of a real baseball man. Of course, that’s where Bud comes up short. No matter how many pitchers he’s employing on the Brewers, he still doesn’t have any balls. Bud should simply say “enough of this freakshow, he’s out of the game. Not a thing Barry, the Giants or anyones lawyers can do (because, as approved by Congress, Baseball is ABOVE the law).

Okay, now that that unpleasantness is out of the way, on to things that actually matter in Baseball. Yankees 5 games back of the dead sox, with 6 head-t0-head games to play, and almost 2 months on the schedule. Seems a few months ago I predicted boston’s annual summer stagnation and fall tumble, but everyone else was laughing then. I don’t hear Curt Schilling laughing now. Fact is, about a month ago I tried to bet two dead sox fans that Chien Ming Wang would end the season with a better record than anyone on the sox’ staff. Neither would bite, despite Beckett having 12 wins at the time. Wang wins tonight, and there’s nobody on the sox staff with a better record. Who’d got more upside, Phil Hughes or Die Sucky Matsuzaka? Who’ve the sox got that’s anywhere near as good as Joba Chamberlain? You remember Joba, don’t you? I mentioned him in an earlier post.

Since then, this is all he’s done: Progressed from A-ball to the Majors in the course of one season. Along the way he’s amassed a 9-2 record, a 2.45 ERA, and put up 135 K’s in only 88 1/3 innings. For those counting at home, that’s an average of 14 strikeouts per 9 innings pitched. MOFO! He pitched 2 innings the other night, gave up one hit, no runs, and had 2K’s in his major league debut. Nasty breaking stuff that even major leaguers can’t hit. And, of course, being 21, he’s only going to get better. Call me in October…

As if that weren’t enough, the Giants are planning on screwing their fans (heck, they aren’t planning on it, they ARE doing it). You can no longer park at the stadium for football games. Unless, of course, you pay for an entire season of parking up front (including preseason games). I understand that with construction parking spaces are short, but lets face it, how many season ticket holders attend all games? I can almost guarantee you that any given week, at least 50% of the stadium crowd are NOT season ticket holders, but folks who purchased their tickets FROM season ticket holders (or brokers who purchased them from season ticket holders). As you get one parking permit for each group of season tickets, it’s not like the season ticket holders can pass along parking privileges to those who’ve purchased (or been given) the tickets. And, if you want to bring your winnebago or tailgate bus, it’s not only $150 for the season (as opposed to the previous $15/game), but an additional $60/week (winnebago) or $100/week (bus). Looks like the Giants’ fans will be paying for the new stadium.

To add insult to injury, if you DON’T have season tickets, the only place you can park is in a lot NOT located at the facility. Of course, there’s no list of where these lots are, or maps on how to get there, and preseason is only a week away. Plus, in addition to the added inconvenience of not parking at the stadium, you get charged MORE to park elsewhere ($20 instead of $15 that it used to be at the stadium), and tailgating is NOT allowed.

So, all you 15 million NYC area residents who don’t have season tickets (and the Giants are still filling requests from 1977), you not only have to pay more, be inconvenienced, but you can’t have any fun before or after the game. What’s the point of going? Let’s face it, most of the fun of attending a football game is interacting with the other fans. A good bit of this is the pre-game tailgate. Take that away, and you might as well sit in a cozy sports bar eating a free buffet, with no rain, wind or cold to deal with, and a better view of the action. Add to that the possibility that without Tiki and Strahan, the Giants just might suck, and it sounds like a lot more empty seats. Not that the Giants care, as they’ve already been paid for them. Give me a call in 2010, when the new stadium is slated to open.

This probably would have been the end of the line for most of the current lineup, faster processors required newer motherboards with different sockets, which all used PCI Express graphics cards and DDR2 memory. About the only things which would survive would be the hard drives and my DVD burners. However, once most of the processors had moved over to the newer socket design, several places started blowing out the older socket 939 chips. A dual-core Athlon 64 X2 3800+ for a ridiculously low $79 extended the system’s usefulness a bit more. I also threw in another500 GB SATA drive ($99) for good measure, bringing the total storage up to 1 Terabyte.

That seemed like it would be the end of the road, as fast AGP cards are hard to find, and usually never cheap when you do find them. However, my good friends at newegg.com had a sale, and I was able to pick up an ATI Radeon X1950 Pro with 512 MB DDR3, which compares nicely to the GeForce 7900 GS, for $149. Considering this blows away just about every other mid-range graphics card on the market, I figured it was worth it to give the system one last hurrah before obsolescence struck.

Now, I’ve never been a fan of ATI, who’ve been known for good hardware but lousy drivers, but at that price point, I couldn’t pass it up. I’m beginning to wonder if it was such a good idea. Black areas on my desktop show sparkly white corruption, which is quite annoying. The only time I’ve seen anything like this is when overclocking a graphics card too much. However, when you play a game, it goes away and everything looks just fine. Games such as Oblivion play MUCH smoother too, due to both the faster GPU and 4x as much texture memory. I’m going to try using other drivers, and see if I can get this problem to go away. If not, maybe I’ll exchange the card for another one and see if that helps. I did strip out all the old NVidia drivers before installing these, so that shouldn’t be the problem.

Finally

You know, I remember when WE were the good guys, we didn’t go around killing and torturing people. The world looked up to us. Unfortunately, it seems those days are long gone.

Up next, a bunch of corporate execs get off the hook (oooh, they had to pay FINES!) for lying to the FDA and public about the effects of Oxycontin. What, a convicted killer doesn’t go to jail, and you though these guys would?

Finally, an NBA referee is about to be indicted for betting on games that he worked. Of course, that means point shaving, by the very people who’re supposed to be enforcing the rules. Not real surprising when a bunch of them were caught selling their first class tickets that the league gave them, buying coach, pocketing the difference, and not reporting the income. Guess that big slap on the wrist they received then taught them a lesson, eh?

Like the Vick case, this one promises to be a slam-dunk for the feds. The ref is already trying to turn in his resignation, a sure sign he’s guilty as hell. He apparently owed a bunch of money due to gambling to mobsters, and, well, they found a way for him to pay them back. Of course, every questionable foul or non-call that a ref makes (or doesn’t) from now on will be suspect. The NBA, soon to go the way of the WWE. Heck, Artest is already whacking people on the sidelines with chairs…

First, let’s remember, this is America. He’s innocent until proven guilty in a court of law or public opinion. Folks regularly get away with murder here (see O.J., Robert Blake, et al). Because of this, there really isn’t anything that the NFL can do, except to give him a “temporary release” to deal with this, while his team deals with the season. No amount of screaming from those dimwits at PETA can change this. Wouldn’t hurt to make that release mandatory. Make it conditional; with pay, if he isn’t convicted, without, if he is. Of course, the Falcon’s owner had better be getting ready to find a starting QB, as I’ll bet money against an NBA ref that Vick won’t be at the helm this season.

While I like the concept that everyone is innocent until proven guilty, and every dog has its day, let’s face it. This isn’t some overzealous hick from North Carolina trying to make a case against some rich fraternity kids to garner black votes. This is a FEDERAL indictment, and they aren’t handed down without a ton of evidence unless the target is some arab social club that bought one too many prepaid cell phones. Nobody in the justice department, except that clown running it, likes to be caught with their pants down. They wouldn’t be pursuing this thing unless it was pretty much a slam-dunk, with no point shaving (Gee, is there another story on my mind this evening as well?).

Chances are (and I like those chances) that even if the jury box is stacked with Vick’s relatives, there’s enough evidence to have him convicted. Despite Vick’s assurances that he’s never been to this house he owns, there are a WHOLE lot of folks who’ve seen him around there. A LOT. So, we’ve got one sick bastard who likes killing and torturing dogs, and watching them rip each other to pieces for fun. Personally, I don’t think the federal pen is punishment enough for him, but there’s that annoying little thing in the constitution against “cruel and unusual punishment”. Unless, of course, you’re at Gitmo. Okay, what are the chances of getting Vick declared an “enemy combatant”? Miq Al’Vik? Somebody check to see if he’s got a Qur’an in his closet…