Good things come to those who wait

Wow, how the fuck is it December 21st already?

Now that there's been over two months of inactivity on this blog, it's probably time for an explanation. It's right there in the blog's tag at the top of the page (if you aren't reading this through a feed reader): "Random nonsense from a thoroughly bored geek / nerd / skeptic." In an unexpected twist, that thoroughly bored person no longer exists; thus no more random nonsense.

Avid followers of this blog may recall a blog post from early this year where I had an online dating mental breakdown and took myself off the market. At that time I wasn't really ready to start dating other people and was only trying to because I thought I had to, to prove that I could. I ultimately made the correct decision at the time to get the fuck out. To help resolve my issues, I spent many hours this summer and fall reading Reddit's relationship_advice and relationships subreddits. Many threads were entertaining, educational, and therapeutic. One recurring theme for those seeking love through online dating was to avoid all other dating sites in favour of the completely free OkCupid. So, in late August, while drunk and lonely, I decided it was time for a second attempt at meeting that special someone, but this time on OkCupid and only OkCupid. My timing could not have been more fortuitous.

My OkCupid profile was pretty bad. Rather than use my standard, over-written profile, I wrote this one from the heart... on the spot... while drunk. It shouldn't have worked. But within a couple of days, I had received my first email.

There wasn't much to that email, and the grammar and spelling were atrocious, but I responded eagerly. Her profile, at least, was interesting, and we seemed to have a lot in common. After a couple of emails, we made arrangements to chat on MSN. I was excited to be back out there, and having much more success this time. But I never chatted with that girl. I was pretty busy at this time, dealing with Christina moving in, and it just never ended up happening.

On September 6th, only a couple of days after getting the first email, I received a second email. Two emails out of the blue within a week of joining an online dating site was pretty unheard of in my experience, so I was a little floored by my luck this time. This second girl was moving to Regina from Halifax in a couple of weeks and had rather obviously sent out a form message to more than just me. Her profile was well written, but I thought she might be a little too pretentiously artsy to enjoy spending time with me. For those and other reasons, I waited a week before responding to her with an uncharacteristically short email. I have to admit that I was surprised when she responded quickly with a second email, but I again, for various reasons that I can't even recall, waited a few days before emailing her back.

I'm pretty lucky that my initially lackadaisical approach with this girl did not sabotage things, because shortly afterwards we were emailing back and forth daily and I warmed up to her in a big way. After a week or so of steady emails, we met in person for dinner and a movie. And then a couple of days later we took in an art opening. And a week later, another movie. And then we played Rock Band and sang karaoke and there was no turning back for me.

Her name is Erin. I am in love with her. I am happier now than I have been in a long time.

Also: way, way busier. Blogging is not high on my list of priorities.

I mentioned earlier that the timing of my OkCupid profile could not have been more fortuitous. That is definitely true. However, there are other matters where the timing of all of this has not been quite so great. And by other matters I primarily mean one other matter. And by that I mean Christina.

Christina moving in with me was supposed to be this great thing to get me out of my rut. And it pretty much worked. For a month and a half, we had a good thing going. But then Erin came into my life and Christina was suddenly unnecessary. (Sorry, Christina, that probably sounds harsh, but I'm sure you know what I mean.) And after a while, when things between Erin and I became serious, Christina's presence became an obstacle in ways I had never anticipated. Obviously, if I had known I would meet someone special in September, I would never have invited Christina to move in with me when she did.

Christina is now investigating her options for moving out well in advance of our original plans. But don't feel too bad for her. If all of this hadn't gone down the way it has gone down, she would have been sitting on her hands in my house for the next nine months. Because of the circumstances, I have escalated the process of paying her out of the terms of our separation agreement. Now she can take her half of my house's equity early and invest in her business and career. She'll be better off for it.

So, what now? I'm not saying that this blog is done. The Week/Month in Review stuff is over, for sure. But I definitely have some more Brewblog posts in me. And I might stop in every once in a while for an update on my life. There will be a lot happening in the coming year.

Brewblog, Entry Nine

Good News, Everyone!

212, which will probably be bottled this weekend, is NOT SOUR. Hallelujah. I don't have to quit brewing (yet).

October 2, 2010 - Brewed Brewniversity #8 (126)

The plan for this brewday wasn't really to do a Brewniversity beer. Simon had awesomely taken it upon himself to build us a bigger mash cooler (66L vs 45L) to match our big 15 gallon pot, so I let Simon create a 38L recipe for the day based around the malts and hops we had in stock. After seeing that his recipe relied on staggered additions of only Amarillo hops for bittering, flavour, and aroma, I decided to slap on the Brewniversity brand.

Malt-wise, it was more complex than the average Brewniversity, having Victory, Crystal, and Munich malts. But 124 (and 224) had been similar, minus the Victory malt, and had also featured staggered hop additions, so 126 made sense for a label for this brew. To me.

The new cooler wasn't nearly pushed to its limits by this batch. That is excellent because it appears that we should be able to do a big batch of big beer in the future. (Right now I'd argue that we have too much big beer in stock.)

After brewday, we attended the Brewer's Dinner at Beer Bros, featuring Half Pints from Winnipeg. It was fucking awesome! I am relieved that my memory blackout for the day only covered a short period between finishing brewing and arriving at Beer Bros. I now believe in teleportation.

October 9, 2010 - Brewed Vanilla Porter 2 (VP2)

The first plan for this brewday was to attempt a Milk Stout. I failed at Friday afternoon shopping (where the fuck do you buy lactose?) and proposed a second attempt at making a delicious Vanilla Porter as plan B. We decided again to do a big 38L batch, which will give us the fun experimental opportunity to split the batch and do different things with the Robust Porter base. This recipe had only a slightly larger grain bill than the 126, so the new mash tun was again nowhere near capacity.

The original Vanilla Porter had been pretty good. The pure vanilla extract added to secondary had lent a very subtle vanilla-ness. For this batch, I purchased both vanilla extract and vanilla beans. I am not yet sure what quantities of vanilla I am going to add to my half of the batch, but I want it to be much more noticeable this time, without being extreme.

The recipe was slightly modified from the original Vanilla Porter. I adjusted the Black, Chocolate, and Crystal 80 malt quantities, and added Munich Malt, based on what I have learned from the various Scott's Stouts and Imperial Stouts and Honey Nut Brown in the meantime. For hops, I went with only Fuggles this time instead of the Fuggles and Goldings blend from the original.

We did make one interesting process change with this batch. Although my house has a water softener installed, it is not operational, so there theoretically shouldn't be a difference between the drinking water tap and the hot water tap. I am assuming that the water heater doesn't fuck up the water somehow. So, rather than heating cool drinking water on our propane burner, we started each step with 145F hot water from my house, letting the high efficiency natural gas water heater handle the brunt of the work. The savings on time is definitely significant. The savings on propane probably is as well. But it remains to be seen if there is an affect on taste.

Next time on Brewblog?

The tenth Brewblog will likely include the next edition of Tasting Notes, discussing the merits of 224, Honey Nut Brown, Matrimonial Ale 6, and the Wee Heavy at a minimum.

Not sure what we are brewing on Saturday. Or if. I'm a lot distracted right now by life. Not complaining. It's fantastic!

A Month in Review, Sep 7 to Oct 10

Oh, I just remembered I have a blog! Oops...

The month of October has been insanely good for me so far, and I haven't been sitting around doing nothing like I did for most of the past year. After the last Month in Review post, I had intended to get back into Week in Review posts, but that fell by the wayside pretty quickly. (Fuck blogging right now. Better things to do.)

The Month in Books

This month, I kept soldiering through the massive tomes that are Steven Erikson's awesome Malazan Book of the Fallen. I completed book five, Midnight Tides, and immediately jumped into book six, The Bonehunters. Midnight Tides was fantastic, dramatic but often hilarious, epic while focused (comparatively), and I read its last five hundred pages in a couple of marathon sessions. The Bonehunters has an early set-piece that is breathtaking in its scope and intensity, but since reading those incredible pages, I have been preoccupied with other things. (Fuck reading right now. Better things to do.)

The Month in Music

Two of my favourite bands released new albums in the past month. Anberlin's Dark is the Way, Light is a Place is okay, with the band taking a different somewhat disappointing approach with their sound, while Jimmy Eat World's Invented is fantastic, more than worthy of their impressive discography. The other new release for the month was Weezer's Hurley, a huge improvement over the immature Raditude, but otherwise not really worthy of my blogging effort. (Fuck blogging about Weezer right now. Better things to do.)

Anberlin has now released two less than spectacular albums since their peak with 2007's Cities, so it may be that they don't have another Cities in them. New Surrender was at least Cities-like in its structure and sound, but it felt rushed and was very inconsistent. Dark is the Way... is much more consistent, but in a poppy, boring-ish way. To go from re-recording the rocking "Feel Good Drag" for New Surrender's first single to this is particularly jarring. First single "Impossible" is a pretty good indication of what you are in for with Dark is the Way.... It's a good, light, catchy tune, but it's not great. "To the Wolves" is arguably the best track, but album closer "Depraved" continues Anberlin's trend of interesting album endings.

Jimmy Eat World slumped a little with 2007's Chase This Light, but with Invented they have found a way to successfully fuse the diverse sounds of Clarity, Futures, and Bleed American into a cohesive and interesting whole. Songs like "Heart is Hard to Find," "Coffee and Cigarettes," and the divisive "Higher Devotion" find the band experimenting with new sounds and new energy, while songs like "Movielike" and title-track "Invented" knock me over with their classic Jimmy Eat World brilliance every time. And the increased orchestral presence throughout is very welcome. I am relieved that my faith in Jimmy Eat World (as illustrated by a comment in The Albums That Always Bring Me Back For More that they are my favourite band that is still together and at the top of their game) was not at all misplaced.

The Month in Movies

I'm not going to review the first movie I saw this month, romantic comedy Going the Distance with Drew Barrymore and Justin Long, because you'll never believe me when I tell you that it is actually quite respectable for its genre. This is not a movie that I would ever see by myself, but I wasn't by myself... and it served its purpose wonderfully.

I would have seen The Social Network by myself--because David Fincher! Aaron Sorkin! Facebook!--but I didn't have to. It's a terrific movie, well acted, funny, moving, frustrating, compelling, fascinating, and brilliantly structured. The bookends are perfect.

The Month in Television

Loved: Dexter (5x1/3), Fringe (3x1-3), Glee (2x3), Mad Men (4x7/9-12), Merlin (3x1/2), Modern Family (2x1-3)
Liked: 30 Rock (5x1-3), The Amazing Race (17x1-3), The Big Bang Theory (4x1-3), Bored to Death (2x3), Chuck (4x1-3), Dexter (5x2), Eureka (4x9), Glee (2x1/2), How I Met Your Mother (6x1-3), Hung (2x10), It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (6x1-4), Mad Men (4x8), Merlin (3x3/4), The Office (7x1-3), So You Think You Can Dance Canada (3x12-20), South Park (14x8), Stargate Universe (2x1/2), True Blood (3x12), Warehouse 13 (2x10-12)
Meh: Bored to Death (2x1/2), Entourage (7x10), House (7x1-3)

That's a lot of fucking TV shows. Goddamn. I'm obviously only going to address the highlights and/or lowlights.

The following statement is definitely something that I never thought I would say: the best thing on TV in the past month was the two-part season three premiere of (fucking) Merlin. "The Tears of Uther Pendragon" was dramatic, game-changing (or was it?), epic, and unquestionably the best thing Merlin has ever done. Bravo! Sadly, the next couple of episodes were firmly back in the series' predictable ball-park. And I forgot to download Saturday's episode. (Fuck Merlin right now. Better things to do.)

In other good news, Fringe has been having a fantastic third season so far, awesomely alternating between universes to keep things interesting, Dexter's fifth season is off to an interesting and compelling start, Modern Family seems funnier than ever, Glee is still awesomely stupid, How I Met Your Mother is redeeming itself from a terrible fifth season, and Mad Men finally found its dramatic thrust halfway through its season and won me back in a big way.

In less good (and now old) news, True Blood's third season finale was only okay, which puts it firmly in the disappointing category. Entourage and Hung ended how they started, lame and pretty good respectively. Bored to Death's premiere episode was dumb, dumb, dumb, but episode three was borderline fantastic, so they've earned my time for the rest of the season.

30 Rock, The Office, The Big Bang Theory, and Always Sunny have been fine but otherwise unremarkable. Not the strongest seasons for these shows, but it is not unusual for comedies of this nature to run out of steam after so many seasons. I still enjoy them even if they aren't what they used to be.

Eureka went on hiatus with a strong mid-season finale, but Warehouse 13 very nearly went off the rails with its finale. Yet it was still enjoyable in that ridiculous cheeseball way. Sadly, my favourite cheeseball dramedy, Chuck, has had a disappointing fourth season so far. If it doesn't get better soon, I may have to pretend that the series was actually canceled after its fantastic third season.

I haven't watched Caprica's first couple of episodes yet. (Fuck Caprica... okay, I'm sure you get the point!)

Why do I even fucking watch House?

Brewblog, Entry Eight

FUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!

Son of a bitch!

The sour infection that refuses to die came back to taunt me with our Saison. When I racked it, I was sure it was completely fine, but after a few days in the carboy, there was some unusual fermentation activity (a haze) and I took a sample. Yep, sour! Fuck. Suspecting the source of infection to be the plastic Better Bottle carboy, I isolated the batch and crossed my fingers that this was the end, for reals this time. I had already stopped using the pail that gave us the horrible 112 and slightly less disgusting Sour Strawberry Wheat.

Belgian IPA 2 was most likely fermented in the same pail as the Saison. (I should have been keeping better track of these things.) After primary fermentation, it seemed fine, again, but after racking the ten gallon batch into two carboys, unusual secondary fermentation was again witnessed after a few days. In my Better Bottle, there was strange surface bubbling. In Simon's glass carboy, the surface actually hardened into a crust. Cue panic.

Because BIPA2 had initially seemed fine, Extra Special Bitter 2 was also fermented in the same damn pail. Once again, when I racked it, it seemed completely fine, but after a few days there was suspicious secondary fermentation activity in its two carboys. And a weird smell.

Ridiculously, after racking the ESB2, I then threw a friend's kit beer into that same fucking pail.

It was shortly after this that I decided to buy a new fermentation bucket and start using glass carboys and containers more consistently. I was going to put an end to this infection once and for all.

Oh, wait!

Last weekend, I did another tasting of all of the supposedly infected beers. And they are not sour! Well, no, the Saison is still sour, but everything else seems kinda fine. Good, even. ESB2 has a Belgiany aroma that it shouldn't have, but that's way better than sour, and it may actually be due to stressed yeast rather than infection. Belgian IPA 2 tastes and smells like it probably should. Even that stupid kit beer tasted and smelled like a kit beer, even though I would have sworn it was sour when I racked it. Holy confirmation bias! What the fuck?

I guess this is good news, but it's super confusing. Stay tuned for more details as they are available.

September 11, 2010 - Brewed Bushwakker Imperial Stout Clone (WAK2)

This was an interesting experiment (with results still pending). We had all greatly enjoyed the ALES club Big Brew Day Russian Imperial Stout (WAK) where our only contribution to our bottles was the Wyeast Denny's Favorite 50 yeast and the priming sugar. With the recipe for that big batch freely available, it made sense that we would eventually attempt to replicate that beer with our ingredients and our mash equipment.

I had to scale the recipe down and make some substitutions. We did not have Crystal 120, so I used Crystal 80. We did not have Carafa Malt, so I did a lot of research and determined that our Chocolate Malt would work. We did not have Munich 120, so I devised a combo-substitution of Munich 90 and Black Malt. For hops we had what we needed, namely Columbus and Willamette, but I had to guess at quantities without knowing alpha acid details.

I had originally planned to use an old ranched London Ale yeast for this batch. I created a starter and everything. But our second sour scare was now underway and the starter smelled funny, so I backed away from reusing the yeast and threw in two packets of dry ale yeast instead.

When we racked this beer one week later, the sample definitely showed a lot of promise. The beer hasn't been touched since then. Nothing wrong with bulk aging this batch since we still have a fair bit of WAK left to drink.

September 18, 2010 - Brewed Harvest Ale (HA)

One of the first awesome beers I had as an ALES member was a Pale Ale made with locally grown fresh Cascade hops. Inspired by that, Simon and I both planted rhizomes from that hop plant in our yards. Both of our plants did quite well this year after not doing much last year.

Actually, my plant is fucking ridiculous. SO MUCH HOPS. So it was time to try using them. I had no idea how effective the hops would be, but the standard recommendation is five times as much wet hops as you would usually use of dry pellet hops. With no other evidence, I took that as gospel.

For a recipe, we went with an all Pale Malt grain bill to keep things simple. I picked a pound of hop flowers on Saturday morning, devised a staggered hop addition schedule, and hoped we'd end up with something that tastes like an American Pale Ale in the end.

Um. No. It does not. Based on the sample from racking, it needs way more hops. Dammit. I still intend to dry hop it with more of the fresh hops before bottling. Hopefully a nice pleasant citrus aroma will distract from the bready taste.

September 25, 2010 - Brewed Brewniversity #7 (212)

Oh, sour 112, you are the absolute worst. How can we learn anything about Goldings hops from your ketchup chips-ness? Trevor had a fantastic idea about using the 112 to marinate meat for a BBQ party. We certainly don't want to drink that shit.

Lucky number seven? 212 was pretty much the exact same recipe as 112, with minor adjustments to Goldings hop quantities. I haven't touched it yet. It had better not be fucking sour. If it is, I quit.

Next time on Brewblog?

Dunno. Hopefully some good news about WAK2's awesomeness. And confirmation that 212 is not sour.

Brewblog, Entry Seven

August 7, 2010 - Brewed Matrimonial Ale 6 (MA6)

With most bottles of Matrimonial Ale 5 gone, it was time to start the cycle all over again. The consensus (two out of three, anyway) for MA6 was that we should try the same Imperial IPA concept of MA5, but with the citrus hops of MA4. And that's pretty much exactly what I devised in BeerSmith on the morning of brew day. I say "pretty much" because I had a new 15 gallon pot to work with.

After using a friend's 8 gallon pot for over a year, we finally saved up enough money to purchase a big pot of our own in July. With twice as much volume to work with in the new boil pot, we are now able to create 10 gallon batches (38L) of some beers instead of the standard 5 gallon (19L). I say "some beers" because we haven't yet upgraded our cooler mash tun, so there are limits on how much grain we can use in a batch. We can easily make 38L of a 4% beer, but as the alcohol content goes up, we can make less and less volume, until we bottom/max (depending on your perspective) out at 19L around 9%.

(We will not brew 38L every brew day, just because we now can. Between only three guys, that's simply too much beer. We just like now having the option to go big if we want to.)

Having previously maxed out our cooler with Blackout Stout, I had a vague idea of how much grain and water I could fit in the mash for MA6. I planned the recipe for a 22L batch of 8% beer, requiring nearly 8 kg of grains. The cooler was definitely maxed out once again.

I had been very happy with the Wyeast Scottish Ale yeast's performance with the Wee Heavy so I wanted to give it another chance to impress on a strong beer. My first attempt to reuse a ranched yeast (the Denny's Favorite 50 in MA5) had been a dismal failure, but I was confident that a yeast starter was key to success. And I was right. MA6 had a very healthy primary fermentation with more than a foot of krausen and better than expected attenuation. Like the Wee Heavy before it, MA6 easily crossed the 9% threshold.

MA6 was bottled on September 4, so I will reserve comments on the finished product for a few more weeks. The samples have been promising. The dry hopped aroma is excellent.

The Matrimonial Ale series, for me at least, has always been about experimenting with American IPA and Imperial IPA recipes to find what kind of crazy things we can make, but one member of the club wants us to settle on an MA recipe and start making that over and over. I expect that MA4 will be the model for future Matrimonial Ales, putting the series firmly back in American IPA territory (it started American, went Imperial by accident, then American, American, Imperial, Imperial).

However, as a big fan of MA5 and hopefully MA6, I am not giving up on the Imperial IPA series. So I need a new name. Aside from Blackout Stout, I haven't really done anything creative with our beer names. Matrimonial Ale was not my idea. Everything else is just named after its style. It's a little boring. But I'm a little boring. So, "Imperial IPA" it is?

August 21, 2010 - Brewed Belgian IPA 2 (BIPA2)

The first Belgian IPA was soured and a big disappointment, but everyone liked the concept enough to try it as our first 38L batch. The plan was to bottle 19L in the standard way but keg the other 19L in Simon's newish kegerator setup. In a month or so, we will do a bottle vs. keg taste challenge.

Not coincidentally, the size of the grain bill for the Belgian IPA 2 was identical to the previous week's Matrimonial Ale 6, maxing out the mash cooler. The extra volume for BIPA2 was added during the sparge process. Ignoring the size difference, the recipe was only slightly revised from the original BIPA, with the same hops, malts, and yeast.

For this double batch, we used the Wyeast Belgian Abbey II liquid yeast that had been ranched from Trevor's Blonde. That yeast has been in my fridge for a few months, and had been ranched and cleaned sloppily and possibly incorrectly, but I made a starter for it two days before brew day, and it seemed healthy enough. And it was. It did quite well.

Simon, unsurprisingly and understandably, wants nothing to do with the sour epidemic of this summer, so his half of the Belgian IPA is currently sitting in a glass carboy, just in case. So far I have detected no obvious sourness in the Belgian IPA, but I am checking on a weekly basis out of paranoia.

August 28, 2010 - Brewed Extra Special Bitter 2 (ESB2)

On this brew day, we wanted to do another big batch (35L or so) to split between bottles and a keg, but of a simple light beer. English Pale Ale was a good fit, especially considering the unused Wyeast London Ale III yeast sitting in my fridge. The first Extra Special Bitter (aka English Pale Ale) was brewed well over a year ago, and I can barely remember how it tasted. In the meantime, we have brewed two Standard Bitters that were solid if unspectacular.

I completely ignored the recipe from our original ESB, instead taking inspiration from various online recipes and our previous Standard Bitters. For malts, it was mostly Pale, with some Crystal 80 and a little Biscuit. For hops, I went with Northern Brewer for bitterness, Goldings for flavour, and Fuggles for aroma.

As I write this, I am racking ESB2 into its two carboys. I detected no sourness in the sample. And it seems like it will be a crisp, refreshing, mildly bitter brew. Nice.

September 4, 2010 - Brewed Simon's Sapporo Lager (SSL)

We don't make many lagers. They require tight temperature control and at temperatures much lower than you'll find anywhere in my house. The first, a Pilsner, fermented and lagered in Simon's basement, had turned out okay (once the sulfur smell went away) despite being fermented and especially lagered at higher than recommended temperatures. But with Simon's kegerator setup, making lagers properly is now a much more realistic prospect.

For our first kegerator lager, Simon wanted to try to make a Japanese rice lager like a Sapporo, so that's what we did. All we could get on short notice was two pounds of rice flakes, so eighty percent of the grain bill was still Pale Malt. I did some research on hops and determined that Saaz and Hallertau were the best fit for bitterness and flavour/aroma respectively.

Other than the rice flakes in the mash, it was a pretty standard brew day. We did only 19L for this batch so it can all be kegged.

Next time on Brewblog

As I conclude this post, I am preparing the London Ale yeast starter for Saturday's Imperial Stout.

A Month in Review, Aug 8 to Sep 6

For a month in review post, this one is actually quite short. I haven't really done that much of note in the last month. Christina moved in, so there was that. And we watched a lot of episodes of So You Think You Can Dance and Queer as Folk. And I've read a lot of reddit threads. And I've been busy at work for a nice change. And I listened to a ton of music as research for the favourite albums posts. It was overall a pretty good month, just not very blogworthy.

The Month in Movies

I can't believe I forgot to review Inception last time. As a big fan of Christopher Nolan's films (Memento and The Prestige, mostly), I was quite excited to see his latest mindbender. What took me by surprise was the fact that it is actually a pretty straightforward storyline. The ending is left open to interpretation, but Inception is otherwise completely logical in structure and easy to follow, once you accept the premise's rules. Repeat viewings are not required to understand Inception, but there are enough details and subtleties to keep the movie interesting in repeat viewings. That is good movie-making. And Inception also features top-notch acting and action. Joseph Gordon-Levitt's zero-gravity scenes were the highlight for me.

As good as Inception was, I enjoyed Edgar Wright's Scott Pilgrim vs. The World even more. I haven't read the source material (soon?), but this live-action video game of a movie was entertaining from start to finish, features one of the coolest soundtracks I've ever heard, and even made me like Michael Cera again. From Spaced to Shaun of the Dead to Hot Fuzz to this, Edgar Wright has yet to disappoint.

The Month in Music

Disturbed's "Asylum," released August 31, is a solid hard-rock album. All of the songs are pretty good, but there is an undeniable sameness to a lot of Disturbed's songs since 2002's "Believe," and I certainly don't think they broke out of that rut with "Asylum." Disturbed is clearly unconcerned with diversity. "Asylum" is a more consistent album than 2008's "Indestructible," but "Indestructible" had better stand-out moments, so I'll call them even. Best Disturbed album is... hmmm... I'll go with "Ten Thousand Fists," I guess.

The Month in Television

My first TV task of August was catching up with Eureka's in-progress fourth season, which has surprisingly been the best season of the series to date. The writers took a big risk in the season premiere that could easily have backfired in a huge way, but have so far managed to make it work rather well.

More recently, I also finished all six series/seasons of hilarious British comedy Peep Show. This series might just be my new favourite comedy series of all time. If I compare only its first two seasons with the two seasons of The Office, The Office wins, but Peep Show kept getting better throughout its third season and hit its comedy genius stride in season four. It's embarrassing how often I identify with pathetic sad sack Mark Corrigan. A seventh season is coming later this fall, so: yay!

It is now September, so that means the return of endless television viewing. I'm looking forward to (in alphabetical order) 30 Rock, The Big Bang Theory, Chuck, Dexter, Fringe, fucking Glee, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Modern Family, The Office, South Park, and Stargate Universe. I'm reluctantly also going to watch The Amazing Race, House, How I Met Your Mother, and Merlin. I'm undecided about Survivor. And I'm annoyed that Caprica and Parks and Recreation are being held for midseason.

As for new shows, I'm not watching any of them, at least not at first. Not even the promising No Ordinary Family. I can always catch up later if the buzz is strong.

Loved: Futurama (7x9-12), Penn & Teller: Bullshit (8x10), Sherlock (1x3)
Liked: Eureka (4x6-8), Hung (2x6-9), Mad Men (4x3-7), So You Think You Can Dance (7x22/23), So You Think You Can Dance Canada (3x1-11), True Blood (3x8-11), Warehouse 13 (2x6-9)
Meh: Entourage (7x6-9)

In the best news of the month, Futurama continues to kick all kinds of ass. I can definitely count on twenty minutes of hilarity every week.

Sherlock's third episode/movie, "The Great Game," was the second best of the three, ending with quite the unexpected jolt. I'm looking forward to more of this series, in a year or two or whenever...

Bullshit's season finale, "Vaccinations," was definitely one of the strongest episodes in the eighth season. In particular, the duo's episode-opening demonstration of the effectiveness of vaccinations was eye-opening. Anti-vaxxers need to fuck off and die.

Eureka and Warehouse 13 had fun crossovers this month that I enjoyed. Eureka has definitely been the better of these two similar silly shows this season, but I nearly always guiltily enjoy both.

Sadly, I'm getting a little bored with the rest of the shows. Like with its second season, True Blood's third season lost a lot of momentum in the second half and is now getting kinda boring sometimes. Mad Men seems to have no dramatic thrust this season, so is just there. Hung is still mostly just okay. Entourage is up and down and all over the place. The three HBO shows end their seasons this coming Sunday. I am still pretty excited for True Blood's finale, as episode eleven did have quite the awesome cliffhanger ending. Perpetually overrated Emmy-winner Mad Men still has half a season to impress.

The Albums That Always Bring Me Back For More, Part 3

Wow, I've been busy these past couple of weeks...

Better late than never, at long last, I present my top five favourite albums. To make up for the delay, I put a little more effort into each entry this time, including my favourite lyrics from my favourite songs.

If you are late to the party, please check out part one and part two.

5. Catherine Wheel - Happy Days (1995)

The video from Waydown was my introduction to Catherine Wheel. I didn't know what to make of it at first, but it was in heavy rotation on MuchMusic in 1995 and grew on me to the point where buying the album became a necessity. It's fun to remember those days when music wasn't so easily sampled for free, buying albums based on one song you liked was common, and you often quickly came to regret the fifteen bucks you had just wasted. Some music stores let you sample the album in-store, but I rarely took advantage of that; I was a risk taker. This particular risk was well worth it. Happy Days is the best album I ever purchased on the strength of only one song without any prior exposure to the band.

It was only when I checked out Catherine Wheel's previous albums that I realized how much of a departure Happy Days was for the band. Fans of Ferment and Chrome, their two quite similar previous albums, were not necessarily fans of Happy Days. The lyrics and vocals have an awesome angry edge, and it is a much harder rocking album musically. Catherine Wheel continued to change their sound significantly with their final two albums, Adam and Eve and Wishville, because they insisted on never stagnating. I love all of Catherine Wheel's albums, but Happy Days is the one that I fell in love with first, and you never forget your first.

Essential Tracks:
"Waydown" - "I breed deep in me a beautiful thing / And I need energy for my beautiful thing / But pain for days has stayed with me / Expect to see some change in me"
"Heal" - "I can climb a tree and push up through the leaves 'cause / Only when I try am I happier to see / My head's in some kind of space where boyhood used to be / It's how high you are and the time it takes to heal"
"Eat My Dust You Insensitive Fuck" - "Eat my dust you insensitive fuck"
"Shocking" - "But won't you listen to me, why can't you believe / That you're breaking my heart / And these moments were part of our lives / And it destroys me to see you destroy them / Every time"

Filler Track: "Fizzy Love"

Runner-Up: Chrome (1993) - "The Nude"

4. Silverchair - Diorama (2002)

Diorama is one of those albums that comes out of nowhere to completely blow you away. Previously, I had only moderate interest in Silverchair, just enough to pick up their "Best Of" album at a used CD shop in the winter of 2001/2002. The best song on that greatest hits collection was "Emotion Sickness," an awesome orchestrated rock ballad that showed promise of much greater things to come. Now much more curious about Silverchair, I also tracked down a used copy of 1999's Neon Ballroom, which is definitely a solid rock album, but with no other songs in the same league as "Emotion Sickness." The next album, Diorama, was the much greater things.

As soon as "Across the Night" starts, you know you are in for something special. I've always been a huge fan of orchestrated rock music; the orchestration just gives it that extra kick, a little epicness. Diorama is the best orchestrated rock album in my collection. The influence of the orchestration ranges from subtle touches in some of the harder rocking songs to songs that are effectively built around the orchestration. Another big reason Diorama stays in my playlist is the diversity of songs. In this one album, there are brilliantly quirky songs "Across the Night" and "Tuna in the Brine," awesome hard rocking songs like "Without You" and "One Way Mule," and beautiful ballads like "World Upon Your Shoulders" and "After All These Years." This is an album that repeatedly rewards the listener from beginning to end.

Essential Tracks:
"Across the Night" - "Never seen the sunshine / From higher points than sunrise / I don't wanna be lonely / I just wanna be alone"
"Without You" - "Old incisions refusing to stay / Like the sun through the trees on a cloudy day"
"Too Much of Not Enough" - "A close look at something so close / It's too much of not enough / When all we need is just a taste"
"After All These Years" - "All those years / I was hurting to feel / Something more than life"

Filler Track: "The Lever"

3. King's X - Please Come Home...Mr. Bulbous (2000)

King's X's Please Come Home...Mr. Bulbous (herein referred to as PCHMB) has a lot of elements working against it. It was written and recorded spontaneously in studio as an experiment, entirely self-produced, features the most ridiculous title and cover art in my entire collection, has foreign language tongue twisters between tracks, jumps from lyrical absurdity to profundity between songs and sometimes within songs, and even includes a beat poetry breakdown. All of these elements actually lend the album a quirky charm. PCHMB is a diverse, crazy mish-mash of an album that works because the songs all work.

Although the members of King's X always share writing credits on all of their songs, on most of their albums it is not difficult to pick out which songs were originally written by Ty or Doug or Jerry, as they all bring different sensibilities to the music. And that is a big reason why PCHMB is special, because the songs don't feel like Ty or Doug or Jerry songs, but Ty and Doug and Jerry songs. And this group effort led to some of the band's best, most melodic songs, really living up to their reputation as the hard rock Beatles, and some of my favourite songs of all time. "She's Gone Away" and "Bitter Sweet" are my favourite songs about marital separation; "Move Me" (annoyingly split over tracks nine and ten) is my favourite song about losing faith in god; "Smudge" and "Charlie Sheen" are my favourite songs about complete nonsense; "Julia" is my favourite song about Julia. (Yes, that last sentence was largely a joke.) PCHMB is a quick listen, far, far too short, leaving you wanting much more, but that's ultimately the best thing you can ask for from an album.

Having said all that, there is no way that I could claim with a straight face that PCHMB is King's X's best album. That honour belongs to 1994's Dogman, which, like Catherine Wheel's Happy Days, found the band at their angriest and hardest rocking. Old school fans might go with 1989's Gretchen Goes to Nebraska, but Dogman was my first King's X.

Essential Tracks:
"She's Gone Away" - "I've got a lot I call my own / My house is full of things / But it's just an empty home / And all day long I walk around / Seeing reminders and reliving all I've found / She's gone away"
"Smudge" - "Any day... yesterday... there's tomorrow to say / Let's forget it anyway"
"Bitter Sweet" - "Ever reading... something's bleeding in my soul / And I can't seem to fill up the hole / And I love you... thinking of you... bitter sweet / So I bury the feeling and empty my head / Just to sleep... too deep"
"Move Me" - "Wish I could whisper how much I need you / After tomorrow I might forget to / If it's only from a story"

Filler Track: "When You're Scared"

Runner-Up: Dogman (1994) - "Cigarettes"

2. Jimmy Eat World - Clarity (1999)

I have already told the story of how I discovered Jimmy Eat World in my second Soundtrack post, so I won't repeat that here. Once again, thanks former co-worker!

Clarity is another diverse album. (If you are starting to notice a pattern, that's because diversity is very important.) It is also unique. Opening track "Table for Glasses" is a slow, quiet, amazing song, not at all representative of Jimmy Eat World or the rest of the album. Album-ending track "Goodbye Sky Harbor," which is awesomely rockified when played live, is seemingly over after three minutes but somehow keeps going for another thirteen. (I used to despise that repetitive instrumental ending, but it grew on me as I started noticing the subtleties of the changing arrangement.) In between, there are catchy pop songs "Lucky Denver Mint" and "Believe in What You Want," rockers "Your New Aesthetic" and "Crush" and "Blister" and "Clarity," epic "Just Watch the Fireworks," and beautiful songs "Ten," "A Sunday," and "For Me This is Heaven." And then there is "12.23.95," the one song that I wish had been left off the album; it's pretty, albeit a little boring, but its worst offense is that it is a fucking Christmas song. It is not bad enough to tarnish the album, but I have been known to pretend that "Ten" comes after "Crush."

Clarity was a major departure, and significant step up, from Jimmy Eat World's emocore major label debut, Static Prevails, and while some of their newer albums have approached its quality level, most notably 2004's Futures, it is still their best overall album. Seeing as Jimmy Eat World is my favourite band that is still together and still at the top of their game, it should make sense that they come in pretty high on this list.

Essential Tracks:
"Table for Glasses" - "Not asking of me anything / Saying nothing about what it means / Without anybody telling me what I should feel / Lead my skeptic sight"
"Just Watch the Fireworks" - "What giving up gives you / And where giving up takes you / I've had and I've been / Here in center frame / Here, there's only air / And just enough space to fit"
"For Me This is Heaven" - "And the time's such clumsy time / In deciding if it's time / I'm careful but not sure how it goes / You can lose yourself in your courage"
"Clarity" - "Wait for something better / Will I know when it can be us? / Wait for something better / Maybe that doesn't mean us / Wait for something better? / I shouldn't, it's not enough / Pull one excuse from another"

Filler Track: "12.23.95"

Runner-Up: Futures (2004) - "23"

And, Now, The Moment You Have All Been Waiting For

1. Live - Throwing Copper (1994)

Like Catherine Wheel, I was introduced to Live by the heavy rotation of their first single "Selling the Drama" on MuchMusic. It was awesome, but I was hesitant to buy the album Throwing Copper based on only the one song. (The difference between this situation and the Catherine Wheel situation is that Throwing Copper was released in 1994, when I was a poor high school student with no job, and Happy Days was released in 1995, when I was heading off to university with lots of money from a summer job and scholarships.) The next single, "I Alone," tempted me further, but I was still broke and very frugal. By the time "Lightning Crashes" was in heavy rotation both on MuchMusic and local radio, I could no longer resist Throwing Copper's pull. Three amazing singles in a row was enough justification to spend fifteen bucks of my birthday money.

It should come as no surprise at this point to read that Throwing Copper is a diverse album. Between the distorted wailing vocals of slow-building album opener "The Dam at Otter Creek" and country-infused hidden track "Horse," numerous alternative rock styles are represented. A number of the songs rely on predictable quiet verses, louder choruses song-writing, but that shit is classic and overused because it works. And Live mixes it up wonderfully with a "Top" here and a "Stage" there. And then they throw in the indescribably fantastic "Waitress" and the epic "Pillar of Davidson." Every song on Throwing Copper is terrific in its own way.

Throwing Copper is easily Live's best album. I was never a big fan of their debut album Mental Jewelry, which makes Throwing Copper a hell of a sophomore improvement. 1997's Secret Samadhi and 1999's The Distance to Here have some excellent songs, but are much less consistently strong throughout. There was a brief time that I considered The Distance to Here to be Live's best album, but those days are long gone. The band almost went completely off the rails with 2001's V, but 2003's Birds of Pray was a surprisingly strong recovery and the last worthy Live album. 2006's Songs from Black Mountain commits the unforgivable sin of being thoroughly boring. And then Ed Kowalczyk went full dick and screwed over his bandmates and Live is no more. What a sad ending to my favourite band from 1995 to 2000.

Essential Tracks:
"Selling the Drama" - "And to Christ: a cross / And to me: a chair / I will sit and earn the ransom / From up here"
"Lightning Crashes" - "Lightning crashes, a new mother cries / Her placenta falls to the floor / The angel opens her eyes / The confusion sets in / Before the doctor can even close the door"
"Waitress" - "After all, everybody's good enough / For some change / Some fucking change!"
"Pillar of Davidson" - "Warm bodies, I sense / are not machines that can only make money / Past, perfect, tense / Words for a feeling and all I've discovered"

Filler Track: "Iris"

The End... finally!

Now back to regularly schedule blog content. Brewblog and Month in Review posts should show up early next week... I hope. And, next Friday is my one year blogiversary!