To Ought-Ten.

For John Dillinger, in hope he is still alive...


Hope you all had a Merry Christmas. And if you didn't, I hope you had a happy something else.

Rather than give you anything fun to read, I've decided to announce in a disproportionately self-important manner that soon this "blag" or whatever the kids are calling it these days will soon branch off into other crap. No, there's no syndication going on here, at least not the kind that gets me anything. So F that.

For now.

Anyhoo, I'm off to research the correlation, if any, between Freddie Mercury's bite-plate and Copenhagen. Not the "global warming" thing, you pervs. The snuff. I'll bet that dude could do a lot of dip if he packed it all up tight against his hard palate.

After that, I'll probably get active with a music blog, a photo blarg, a personal blorgh, and a homebrewing balrog. In fact, I know I will. I'm just TOO eager to share every intimate MC 2 RATION with y'all. Speaking of which, I've got to see a guy about a large equine animal.

P.S. Yes, that's my beer. I made it and it was good.

landing short.

Bleh. I guess this is where humility steps in.

Thought I "got" the basics of brewing. Then I ended up running a batch that missed OG by nigh two points. So, WTF?

It's not all about ABV, but I'm hoping that this porter can hit at least 4%.

Nothing Witty, Only Wise.

Bottled the first batch of homebrew last night. Now, to wait 2-3 weeks for carbonation and conditioning. Sent about 1/3 of the batch back to Ohio.

Brewed up some "Holiday Cheer*" and some Apfelwein** today. Apfelwein has started fermenting, I'd imagine the "Holiday Cheer" will catch up sometime in the morning. The Apfelwein already increased its temperature by 4-6 deg. F today. By itself. So cool.

So, around New Year's, I'll have 10 gallons of hooch ready to distribute. Saving your empties? I hope so! BTW, did you know that over 15,000 gals. of this Apfelwein have been made?


2009 Grand Total: 15 gal. homebrew.
- 5 gal. Orly's "Old Speckled Hen" extract/steep clone.
- 5 gal. EdWort's Apfelwein.
- 5 gal. Holiday Cheer.


* Thanks to Charlie Papazian & his book "The New Complete Joy of Homebrewing"
** Thanks to 'EdWort' at www.homebrewtalk.com.

In other brews...

Racked my lovely 'Old Speckled Hen' clone to the secondary fermenter this weekend. Two weeks 'til bottling, five weeks until it's carbonated in the bottles. Can't wait!

Thinking about starting an Apfelwein this week. I have the apple juice, just need the yeast. And maybe, possibly maybe, I'll try to run a new batch of beer this weekend for the new year. Maybe some of Esoderica's "Körnläger..."

USC(IS) ya later...

Here it is. The "Adjustment of Status" paperwork that The Osita and I had to file in order to get permission for her to work and continue living in the USA. Wave a flag today. I sure will, because there's no more "green" around here to flaunt.


Total price tag: $2,495.

From Now to There.

It's been an interesting month. Lightning seems to have struck twice. Ok, maybe not lightning, but at least some nice sparks.

First, on a whim I emailed an old friend of Osita's. For those who don't know, The Osita's professional life has centered around contemporary dance, much of it in Mexico D.F.. In my brief travels to D.F., I had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with several of her dance comrades. Introducing: Mr. Ricky.

Seeing as The Osita and Mr. Ricky were good friends, he got introduced to some of the short recordings I've done. Thing is, he liked them. So, Mr. Ricky and I have exchanged pleasantries over the past couple of years, keeping loosely up-to-date about what's new and exciting.

The last email I sent to him garnered an unexpected response. He has started his own dance company and will be choreographing a new piece that he has titled "AQUA." Reading through his initial production notes, a flood of ideas immediately began filling my mind. Long story short - Mr. Ricky has apparently aggressively marketed this performance and has since received funding for production. AQUA is slated to be performed in D.F., and somehow, in Poland next year.

And I've been commissioned to write the score. 45-minute long composition to accompany this production. And it's a paying gig. What? Needless to say, this has been a dream of mine for quite some time and I'm jazzed to do it.

So, that's spark #1.

The other: $500+ of homebrewing equipment popped up on Craigslist for $150. The first batch, which was supposed to be an Old Speckled Hen clone, isn't quite turning out that way as I mashed some grains instead of steeping them. What does that mean? I extracted fermentable sugars instead of mere malt flavor. The result: a much stronger final gravity. What should have been a delicious 4.5% ABV OSH clone will end up being a 6.5% ABV mystery.

So, however it turns out, cheers!

And Heeeere's the Pitch!

Behold; the night-train! First batch of homebrew is already gurgling signs of life. Provided I managed not to infect it (looking good as fermentation has taken the lead) some nice ESB should be ready in about a month.

Also...1st post from the mobilio.

More soon!

Laid Bare: Build a Bridge.

From Things Laid Bear

Moving on to the next things required a bridge, which, thankfully was provided.

More soon.

Laid Bare: Alles Neues

Tell me this shouldn't be interstitial music for BBC News. No, go ahead. I can take it.

A short clip using a nifty bubbly synth arpeggio track in Ableton.

Laid Bare: Sure, leave.

Finally, some sound up in this piece!

This marked the first time I was happy with using an electric guitar patch as a melodic lead. Might not sound like a big deal, but truth be told, I'm a picky son-of-a-bonchhozzle.

Clicky below for the rest of the story.

Laid Bare: Almost Time.

From Things Laid Bear

They're calling for 6-12" of snow before Wednesday passes.
They got me thinkin', they got me thinkin'.
What album is right when Winter is fleeting?

Tweet? Twaaaaaaaaaat?

A big hey-hey to anyone who landed here via Twitter! There will eventually be some stuff here. Stuff worth checking out. Mark it.

Pay it Forward and Back Again: An Oso's Tale.

While driving home from work one day, Don Oso decided he'd take his chance at listening to some AM radio. AM radio, he thought to himself, is like "the other white meat." Well, he thought, not so much like the "other white meat," but like the actual phrase "the other white meat." Everyone always knew that pork was there with its curly tail and squeal-of-being-eaten delightful tenderness; it took a mad-hatted genius in an ivory tower somewhere to coin a phrase that both promoted itself and yet deferred superiority to another animal's flesh. How polite.

After briefly chastising himself for allowing his mind to wander on such mental fodder for too long, he remembered the point of the whole excursion; AM radio is a lot like pork, or at least its famous catchphrase. But by now, Don Oso had forgotten the point of it all as he was supremely impressed by the advertisement he was hearing for a company that could "eliminate the tax debt that YOU owe the government!"

"Fantastic!" thought Don Oso! "I can finally get out from under these tax liens!" He marveled at the thought.

So, Don Oso arrived home, picked up the phone and called the tax-debt-relief lawyers. They explained that previous clients, clients who owed the Federal Government over $40,000, settled their debts at pennies on the dollar, paying Uncle Sam merely hundreds of dollars instead of the tens of thousands that they owed.

How did it work? Simple! Don Oso simply had to sign a contract stipulating that he would pay the lawyers a percentage of the amount that they were able to negotiate off of his back taxes, which Don Oso was assured could be a 5-figure number. So, after some discussion, assurances and platitudes, Don Oso signed a contract and went home to wait.

Six months passed, and Don Oso was tired of collectors calling his home a few times a day, trying to collect money for services rendered by some law firm that claimed he owed them 6% of $80,000. As he was driving home that day, he decided to test the waves of AM radio again, as he was wont to do. While listening to a captivating advertisement for debt-consolidation services, a service he would call when he arrived home that evening, he couldn't help but experience deja-vu as his mind was inexplicably fixated on sweet-and-sour pork.

Laid Bare: A Primer

As I toy with a better layout for this space, allow me to introduce the "Laid Bare" tag. Simply put, it'll be a photo that I've taken or a clip of some music that I've composed. You should be able to filter by the tag "laid bare," in case you REALLY get interested in seeing the non-wordy creative content on this blog.

Laid Bare: Before the Fall

From Things Laid Bear

Meet the autumn Aspen. Clicky for biggie(r).

Lost in Thought

So, it was a prematurely snow-bound weekend in NoCo. By snow-bound, I mostly mean "a long-awaited quiet day spent inside." Because the Osita and I had a late (and big) breakfast, we weren't really hungry enough to rationalize a gut-busting dinner. So we made popcorn.

The Osita chose to season hers with olive oil and "Italian seasoning," while Don Oso chose a more fitting and malodorous blend of Parmesan cheese and Cholula. The next thing I know, The Osita was calling me back to reality with that ever-so-familiar question: "Honey, what's on your mind?"

Apparently, popcorn physics was on my mind. I had drifted off into a fantasy challenge issued by a king of some far off medieval land. The king had issued a decree, challenging his underlings to separate his popped corn from the mandible-cracking unpopped kernels that remained on the bottom of whatever grail or platter he consumed his popcorn out of.

The challenge was this: it was apparently not fitting for the king to separate his popcorn by use of something like a prospector's pan, where the unpopped gold would simply fall through the bottom of a screen leaving his majesty's buttery treasure behind. No, this particular (imaginary) patriarch wanted the popped corn to escape through the top of a device, leaving the waste kernels behind. Why? I don't know. But for some reason, I felt up to the challenge and I told him so.

That's when the king added the following provision: the popcorn must escape this sorting device unscathed. Even damaging a single kernel would result in beheading. Throwing caution to the wind, I replied, "no problem."

So, I unveiled my device to the king. Immediately, the fan-blade mechanism at the bottom of my popcorn-sorting device knocked one lobe off of a popped kernel. Before that damaged morsel hit the ground, my head did.

That's when I heard The Osita ask, "Honey, what's on your mind?"

Don Oso = Mister Bear