Hastur

Okay, I've been treating the forum a little too much like my personal brewing blog, which is probably not good. So, before I sign off on the brewing thread, I thought I'd share a couple more pics. One for Hurlshot, the rat bastard. You shamed me into buying the good honey. 32 bucks for a 6 pound bag! Never know, might be worth it. Next, I made a batch of beer and took a sip of it. Good God, it about knocked me on my ass. Waaaaaay too heavy. When I was at the brew shop for the honey, I picked up some pale malt extract and did about a two to one mix of pale to rye brew with dark malted grains. Steeped the grains for a half hour at 160 degrees and then added the extract and brought it to a boil for an hour. Used NZ cascade hops. I think the full ounce was probably a mistake, but this was already going to be a gutsy brew. I guess I'll taste how it turns out at the end of next month. Thanks for the good times! I'll pour out a little beer for you as libation!* *Into my glass, but I'll pour it!

Well, I read the posts and see the troll accusations thrown around. Just to clarify, I said don't judge people too harshly. I didn't say you couldn't lovingly bash them once in a while. Anyhow, I'm the new guy. Not my place to advise anyone about anything. I don't know if Trump is a nationalist or not. I've honestly thought the whole time that he didn't think he'd get this far and it all kind of ended up the way it did. Stranger things have happened. This election is really on its ear. I'm probably the most pessimistic about the future that I've ever been. Typically, we so called conservatives were always the optimists. Now the Democrats claim optimism, but they aren't really optimists. The only good line in Hillary's speech was that we were no longer Morning in America, but instead were Midnight, but her comment meant to point her finger at Trump, which is fine, but she should have been pointing at herself with her thumb at the same time. Aw well, time for a beer, methinks. Enough of this navel gazing crap. Time to get hammered and bet on something more rational the presidential election, like who's going to be the next Pope.

I'm way too boring to discuss in this thread. Seriously, and do not take this as a complaint, but I feel guilty distracting from folks' political debate. However, I will tell you that I don't think you're a troll, Bruce, and I wouldn't care if you were. You have a viewpoint and you express it. That's pretty much what we're all doing. If you aim to elicit a response, that's only natural. Why discuss things on a message board if you don't want to hear what other people have to say? If that's you're view, why post in a forum? Why not just blog about your views? As for Hillary, I think she's as corrupt as a three dollar bill. I believe her to be devoid of scruples and intent on her personal agenda. So, if she's elected president, I will respond by: Referring to her as President Clinton Praying for her good health Respecting her if ever I am to meet her by addressing her as Madame President and treating her with the dignity due her station and reminding conservative friends that, no matter how terrible she is, no good can come to us from harm to her. ...But don't hold harsh criticism of politicians against the people in this thread, either about Trump or Hillary. The fact is, this is the perfect place to vent steam. Forums like this are great safety valves to let out some crazy and retain your sanity. We're human beings, by God, and we need to have safe place to bitch about things. Write an angry post! Don't strap on a suicide vest! That would be my slogan were I to run for president.

I like a nice rye myself. In fact, I've got some rye malt extract sitting on my counter. However, I went with the cheapest 12 year old scotch I could find at Costco, which is probably what I'll enjoy over ice or maybe with water tonight.

nose needs to be bigger for that I just don't get it. Is it supposed to be flattering and simply falling short? Is it supposed to be insulting although it has a perfectly reasonable political quote on the back? Are those chopsticks protruding from his neck?

Thanks for the kind words, Bruce. I think humans are individually important, of course. I love my cats and, as living creatures, I believe they are important also. See, some of us Republicans are all soft and mushy inside. However, in terms of having long term notable significance in a broad population sense, we're not. I think that's good. The people who want to tweet can share what they want, as much and as little of their lives, and the people who want to refrain can take solace that they're not 'important' enough for people to intrude into their privacy in a meaningful way. Now, I have to say something about my ill advised bet, which also relates to privacy. First of all, I made the bet. I don't feel bad about it per se other than it was a bit childish. I'm pretty confident that the specific of my bet probably won't happen anyway. I doubt we go into the election with it being literally only 2% in the average of polls and if it does, I'd be so shocked if Trump doesn't win that wearing a dress and calling myself a bitch won't eve register. It's not even the most humiliating wound I will have inflicted on myself. ...And, hell, nothing to establish your cred like cashing out your loss after a bet. It was mostly ill advised because I'm somewhat of a nomad and I'm afraid I won't be around. However, November is so close, only a few months hence, I'll just make sure I keep poking my head in the door. Frankly, no one's taken me up on the bet, so it won't matter anyway.

And if they work for NSA- whose purpose is to subvert others/ protect US communications/ internet etc- then you'd be right to since their technical security is very good, and has to be very good. If on the other hand they work for Hillary Rodham Clinton or the DNC chances are they're grossly incompetent (but not grossly negligent) rather than elite and their security is very very bad to the extent it barely exists for the former case. This was guffaw out loud funny to me. Frankly, I think the Republicans and Democrats alike should be damned scared about what happened with the DNC. Politics can't work without secrets. That's simply true. There must be some way to discuss these issues without others hearing. We Republicans might enjoy the dilemma the Democrats face because of this email debacle, but the rosy feeling we get from their suffering will wilt straight away once the secrets in our party start showing up on the front page of newspapers. I frankly think the world has changed in ways that destroy personal privacy. That will undoubtedly be bad. Might be good. Probably a combination of both, but we live in a world where increasingly the only security we have in our privacy is the insignificance of our lives. Once you become a big enough target, people will start shooting at you. This is also the only real defense we little guys have against all manner of cyber crime. If someone really wanted to crack my personal router, they could do it. It's just not worth even a trivial amount of time for any of the people with resources to do it.

The Cambrians are in Wales friend. Yeah, I know. I was thinking of England as a stopping off place first. I've always wanted to go to Wales, but, having been as far north as Scotland and down south to the Channel, I've never gotten over to Wales. Sorry about the confusion.

If the she devil wins, I'll renounce my American citizenship, move to England, cast for the revote on Brexit, and become a hardened warlord chieftain in Tryfan range of the Cambrian mountains! ...Or I'll just brew more booze to drink while I bitch about American politics while soaking in a Jacuzzi with friends. Yeah, that's a lot more likely. I am curious about one thing, however, how many of the people in this thread have actually done any of these things: Voted in every election? Made cold calls for a candidate? Gone door to door to promote candidates and issues? Donated money to a national candidate or party? That's not meant to be judgmental. Frankly, you could be an idiot if you did any of those things. I don't know. You're definitely going to find it's a pain to do the last one because once you donate to... well... anyone, they hound you incessantly forever after. Political parties. Church. Blood banks. Charities. There's actually a story behind the donation thing, but frankly, it's easier for most folks to donate money to a cause than time, so while a lot of people will think it's idiotic to donate money, it's a lot more difficult and requires a lot more commitment to actually do campaign volunteer work. ...And, don't think making calls is easier. Going door to door, you can use a disarming smile or other non-verbal communication to deal with people and it's much harder for most folks to be rude to your face. Of course, that's harder with the occasional dog who doesn't give a crap if you're a Republican, a Democrat, or the Free Uranium for the People party. Dogs just see an intruder and want to bite you.

This was really cynical, but it made me laugh. *I'm Hastur, and I approve of this message.

No pressure, bud. I always like to see/hear about new brews. Not as much as I like to taste/imbibe them, but ya gotta be realistic. Usually mead doesn't go quite so gonzo on the foam, but between the blueberries and the yeast nutrient, the latest batch has gone crazy. For the beer, I need to get more malt extract. I'd thought I was getting traditional dark when I ordered the liquid extract and it's rye. I just don't have the stones to make a beer with 100% rye extract. I mean, I have the grain to steep also, so it might not be too much, but I think it'd be way too extreme. I might order more today or stop by the MoreBeer store this weekend if I get the chance. I need to get the beer fermenting soon so I can rack it and have the carboy ready to use as a secondary fermenter. This is the part I don't like. I enjoy the brewing part and bottling is fun if a lot of work. ...And I love the drinking part. Siphoning into secondary fermenters can be a pain, though.

"The Mexicans will pay for it." Couldn't help myself.

Literally taxing the air you breath. Yep, the beatles called it a long time ago.

I typically don't follow games before they're released. I might a little bit, but I like to preserve my enjoyment. I'm stopped smack dab in the middle of a Pillars game because I'd heard too much about the expansions. I'd finished it once and I was working on the path of the damned run when I stopped playing, but I look forward to finishing it after some of the basic plot twists have become lost to my aged mind. I'm seriously jonesing for Tyranny, and my curiosity got the better of me, but I figure it's early enough in the development that I needn't worry too much. I like what I see so far. It could be merely good or it could be absolutely awesome. I guess I'll go back to Way Off Topic and get the joy of discovery whenever they ship the game.

First of all, I agree about the cyser. I've got the same thing going on with my brother in law. I'm hoping to get that done at the end of summer. However to the point about beer and wine at the grocery, liquor store, or winery... it isn't that booze can't readily be found where I live. I'm using scotch in an airlock for mead I'm brewing. The point of brewing your own mead and beer is the same point of working on your own car or building your own computer. It's the feeling that you did it yourself. Yeah, I rely on manufactured stuff, so I don't pretend that I'm going to survive the zombie (or Hillump) apocalypse because I like to brew at home. I get satisfaction from it, though. To be sure, the sanitation is a pain, but I actually don't find it any more burdensome than standing in front of a hot stove for one to two hours boiling water, steeping gran, and boiling malt extract. Moving 120 ounces of blueberries from where it's been soaking in the must into the bottle neck of a 5 gallon carboy is a lot messier and a pain than sanitation. Look, Mr. Enoch, I'm not saying you don't have a point. You might have neither the time nor the inclination to homebrew, which is fine because you've got a buddy who likes to homebrew and you can enjoy one of his creations with him. He does what he does and I suspect that you have things you do that are closer to your heart and you enjoy. If I ever got to the point where the brewing was more of a chore than fun, I'd stop doing it, but I have to tell you, I've never opened a store bought bottle of beer or wine and had the satisfaction I felt on the day I tried the first beer I'd brewed and realized that it was actually good. Even now, with all of my super young bottles of beer and mead at home, I have to fight off the urge not to drink them even when I have other stuff in the house. That and, while I might not be the zombie apocalypse survivor I'd like to be, the things I do as hobbies certainly would be useful in the end times. Hell, the Scorpions catch me outside of New Vegas and I'll at least be able to barter for my life what with fixing broken down crap and brewing stuff and whatnot.

I would be more likely to admire and trust Manning, the traitorous bastard that he was to betray his country's secrets. I would completely agree with you about Snowden and would probably (and comments like these are not idle forum statements) have contributed to his defense had he stayed in the US. I thought long and hard about what he did and what it meant, but the bottom line is he fled his country like a coward. If he had stayed, he might be in prison, but there are things more important than personal freedom. There are things more important than your life. Ask any poor bastard who's put on the uniform of his country and marched into enemy fire, or those cops who put their bodies on top of the mother and her children in Dallas, or the crazy assed French mom and dad who gave their kid all of the water they had so he lived while they died of heatstroke. I could have admired Snowden, and I would have called him a patriot and a hero, but fleeing to the Soviet Union besmirched his good name. All things are forgiven in time, and I have no personal animosity towards him, but forgiveness doesn't mean trust, and I neither trust him nor do I believe he has claim to the title of hero.

That's true, and I've considered getting specialty honey but, to be brutally honest, I haven't been brewing all that long. Yeah, I've done several batches of beer and mead, but I was hoping to get down some of the finer points before I drop the cash on that quantity of honey. I mean, it's not bank breaking, but when you feel like you're figuring out mistakes and correcting them with each batch, you don't want to spend the money on the good stuff. I tell you what, though, if this batch continues to show the steady improvement I've seen since I started, I'll go ahead and drop the bread on the good honey and be assured it's worth the dough. Then I'll share how it came out.

There are specialty shops for brewing that typically have a small selection of honey that's overpriced. They're surprisingly reasonable on most stuff. There's also specialty organic stores, honey stores, famers' markets, etc. Those are also priced on the steep side, so I get the big Costco Kirkland honey in two five pound jugs. We also picked up the blueberries there. I don't know if I want the wife to like the blueberry mead because it was so much work or not like it so I don't have to make it again. I guess I want her to like it because, with five gallons, we're gonna have a lot!

Mead day arrived. This is the day I had time to engage in the brewing process. I took a picture of the mead right after I put it in the carboy before I put the 5 gallon carboy in its cooler and stuck that somewhere to ferment for the next few weeks. I also figured I'd show most of my ingredients for the one gallon beer recipe. I'm not brave enough to use rye malt extract exclusively for the brew. I'll go to the brew store tomorrow for a few pounds of something, maybe dark maybe wheat. I don't know, but I'll have grain and malt extract. I literally chose the New Zealand Cascade because I'm hoping to encourage Zoraptor to throw us a cider recipe. As far as the mead recipe goes: 9 pounds honey ~ 120 ounces of blueberries (fresh, washed, and frozen overnight 2 fine lemons in good condition champagne yeast ~ 3 teaspoons of yeast nutrient Boil honey and sift out foam. After it's no longer foaming, remove from burner and squeeze a couple lemons into the must. You can toss in the squeezed lemons if you want or simply add zest. If you add lemons, you'll have to take them out before adding the must to the carboy. I guess you could leave them in, but I bet it would be a pain in the ass when racking the mead. Anyhow, you can let the must sit to cool or place it in an ice bath. I had two boiling pans and they cooled in good order. While cooling, pitch the yeast. My yeast had to sit for 20 minutes before adding it to the must, which I did while everything cooled and then I put it all together, shook the carboy to aerate everything, and then I put in the bung and the air lock. I used Glen Moray scotch I got cheap at Costco in the air lock. I don't know that it makes a difference. I usually use purified water in the airlock, but I used cognac once and I figured I'd try scotch this time. Probably a waste of scotch, although I'll just drink it out of the airlock when the fermenting is done. Now it has to ferment for a while before I bottle it. I'll give you a hint: getting the blueberries from the carboy into bottles is going to be a bloody mess. Oh, I forgot to put in the yeast nutrient!

Yeah, only the most psychotic ever join the military. Bastards! To be serious, I believe our boys and girls in uniform deserve an immense amount of respect. I don't put up a shrine to them and, frankly, I don't think most of them want that. They want a firm handshake and a sincere thank you. If one of them commits a crime, the rest are content to see it punished. If they pay into the G.I. bill, they expect to have funds available for college. All that seems perfectly reasonable. I don't think they want to be worshipped, they just don't want someone to claim that just because they volunteered to serve their country that they are somehow marked as violent or extreme. Frankly, attacks on the police and the military in this country makes for bad politics. Sure, use it to gin up the base with some red meat, but if you're seen as genuinely anti-cop or military, it will haunt you come election. Not because of the numbers of military and police voting, but because the military and police are still two of the most respected institutions in this country by the mass. ...And by the mass their hearts are in the trim (to steal from the bard for effect). For shame, you swine! I did get a kick out of the dumpster fire comment, though.

I kind of wish Johnson would win. I remember Dukakis running against Bush and the many 'clever' jokes people made about the election. Yeah, it was puerile stuff, and you felt kinda guilty laughing at it, but it made it fun. Just think of a race with Bernie versus Johnson... "Did your Johnson feel the Bern?" If someone attacked us, we'd "Give 'em the Johnson treatment." Okay, probably not funny, but even lame jokes can be good when times are dark.

I don't see immigration policy as punitive so much as safety. No rational person can think that a nation is secure without the command of its borders. No country should be expected to invite people into its borders who agitate against its interests.

That actually made me chuckle. ...And I could use a laugh right now, so thanks. There's still time at the DNC. The President can give us his predictions on the final four. For next year, of course.

So it's settled. The Dems have nominated Barrack Obama? But, yeah, the Obama administration has been a hallmark of honesty and truth. I hope folks can detect sarcasm.

The entire DNC has been fearmongering about Trump as far as I can see.