Week in Review, Oct 22 to 28

Just TV again this week. I am hopeful that next week's Week in Review will include the first The Week in Books entry (or, at worst, the week after next). My reading time has been disappointingly sporadic of late, but I think that'll turn around soon.

The Week in Television

Since this was a lighter week of scheduled TV (because of Fox's baseball coverage) and I have absolutely no life, I had an opportunity on Sunday to marathon a couple shows that I had fallen behind in. First up was Stargate Universe. And then it was time for Glee. Both will now be added to my weekly viewing--not that I needed more shows to watch, but this shit is too good to skip.

Now that I am caught up, Stargate Universe will be the first Stargate series I watch on a weekly basis. Since the original Stargate movie was so awful, I didn't really have any interest when the original Stargate SG1 series was launched. Even after hearing from multiple sources that it was pretty good, it took until the show was in its seventh season on the air for me to sample the first season on DVD. And it was pretty good--I'd describe it as Star-Trek-lite. It took a while, but I eventually worked my way through all ten seasons on DVD, and I did enjoy the show, most of the time. I'm not a huge fan of the Stargate SG1 universe (the Goa'uld always came off as cheesy villains, never intimidating), but the show never took itself too seriously and was generally fun and entertaining. SG1's first spin-off was Stargate Atlantis, the Deep Space Nine of the Stargate saga, in more ways than one. This past summer I watched the entire SGA series on DVD, and I really enjoyed it. I was surprised how good it was. Better mythology, better writing, better characters (Rodney McKay FTW!). Stargate Universe is the second spin-off of SG1, and it will hopefully not end up being the Voyager of the Stargate saga, despite borrowing the "trapped at the far end of the universe" premise. So far, so good! I watched the first five episodes on Sunday and I was sad when I realized I had to wait a week for episode six. SGU has a lot of similarities to SGA, but has borrowed most of its look and style from Battlestar Galactica--definitely a smart move!--and is developing some very promising storylines. I'm unsure at this point if SGU has the quality characters of SGA or BSG, but there is definitely a lot of potential.

People have been raving about Glee since its pilot was sneak previewed earlier this year. I remember seeing a short snippet of the show back then and wondering who would want to watch that shit. Now that I've seen the pilot in its entirety, I have to admit that I was an idiot to judge the show by one scene seen out of context. This is unquestionably the most entertaining new show of the season. I watched seven out of the eight episodes of this show in a row on Sunday, and I only stopped because I had to go to bed at a reasonable time. The musical numbers are always the highlight, especially episode six's two mash-ups and every appearance of "Don't Stop Believing." The characters are terrific, the storylines are ridiculous, and the relationships are completely fucked up, especially amongst the adults. The only problem I foresee with this show is that the concept has a very limited shelf life.

Thursday, October 22nd
Liked: 30 Rock (4x2), It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (5x6), The Office (6x6)
Meh: Parks and Recreation (2x6)

The Thursday comedies were stronger this week than last, but nothing was particularly excellent. Although "Kaboom" was a big episode for moving the show forward (because the hole was finally filled), Parks and Recreation is squandering all of its early season potential lately with dumb plotlines and a lack of laughs. The Office's "The Lover" was pretty funny, but it was even more awkward and uncomfortable. It made sense for Pam to be initially upset about Michael and her mom, but her unwavering anger was taken too far. "Into the Crevasse" was a typical 30 Rock episode: completely absurd but pretty damn funny. Always Sunny's "The World Series Defense" had a good setup and even better execution--loved the grain alcohol jugs and the return of Greenman!

Friday, October 23rd
Loved: Dollhouse (2x4), Stargate Universe (1x5)

It's now pretty much a done deal that Dollhouse will be done before Christmas. It remains to be seen whether the show will get all 13 episodes of its second season on the air. Dollhouse is not airing during November sweeps, which means a long four week hiatus after this week's "Belonging," one of the best episodes of the series to date. Although I personally have no problems with the typical Echo imprint-of-the-week episodes, Dollhouse is always at its best when it breaks formula. Even better, this episode wasn't about Echo at all, focusing on Sierra's past and present and answering some lingering questions from the first season. It is also interesting how much I've come to like the character Topher, considering he was probably my least favourite character at the beginning of the series.

I've already written a lot about Stargate Universe in this Week in Review, but I did want to mention that episode five, "Light," was probably the best episode to date of the series, despite the inevitability of the ending. I appreciate that the series is taking time out to let the characters experience the wonders of the universe around them with the observation deck concept, and that the special effects in these sequences are pretty astounding at times. I'm a little concerned that the ending here has killed the "How will they survive?" suspense that was central to the drama up to this point, but I trust Brad Wright to keep this series interesting.

Sunday, October 25th
Loved: Dexter (4x5)
Liked: The Amazing Race (15x5),
Meh: Bored to Death (1x6), Curb Your Enthusiasm (7x6)

Dexter's "Dirty Harry" was another winner. This season seems to be moving at a ridiculously quick pace. I would have expected the events of this episode to play out much later in the season, but I will trust that the writers know what they are doing. Can't wait for next week!

Neither Curb Your Enthusiasm nor Bored to Death brought their A-game this week. There was some good stuff with poor Richard Lewis to slightly enliven Curb's strangely dull "The Bare Midriff," but the absurdity of Larry getting arrested for stealing napkins was really pushing it. The pot humour in Bored's "The Case of the Beautiful Blackmailer" was tiresome, but I did appreciate the episode's ending. Curb Your Enthusiasm has had such a strong season that I don't mind one weaker outing, but Bored To Death is starting to lose me and is definitely no longer my favourite new show this year.

Monday, October 26th
Disliked: Heroes (4x7)

"Strange Attractors" was a pretty terrible episode of Heroes. The trend this season is to alternate characters from week to week, because there are apparently too many to include in each episode. So, no Hiro, and by extension, no Charlie this week. Fuck that shit! I even missed Peter, and I don't really like Peter. Instead, we get more nonsense with Parkman and Sylon, Noah and Tracy unable to save healer boy from redneck justice, and Claire saving Gretchen from invisible girl in the most wrong-headed storyline of the episode. At least the episode ended with a pretty cool example of Samuel's powers.

Wednesday, October 28th
Liked: Modern Family (1x6), South Park (13x11)

This week's Modern Family was probably the weakest episode to date, but it still had plenty of good laughs thanks to Phil and Cameron. I don't have much else to say about it.

I am not familiar with the reality show that South Park was mocking with "Whale Whores," but the absurdity of the opening moments of this episode was pretty awesome. When it shifted into reality show parody, it was pretty funny, but I imagine it would be even funnier with more familiarity of "Whale Wars," or whatever the real show is called. I did laugh pretty hard at the Larry King interview, though. And the ending was goofy, but it worked.

Week in Review, Oct 15 to 21

The Week in Television

Thursday, October 15th
Liked: 30 Rock (4x1), It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (5x5)
Meh: Fringe (2x5), The Mentalist (2x4), The Office (6x5)
Disliked: Parks and Recreation (2x5)

Hoo boy, this was a weak Thursday. The normally reliable The Office had an off week with "Mafia," with too much sitcom-like silliness and not nearly enough Jim and Pam to balance it out. Fringe was back in mediocre X-Files rip-off mode with "Dream Logic." The Mentalist was predictable and boring. And Parks and Recreation's "Sister City" was almost completely awful. 30 Rock's season premiere was easily the best thing on NBC this Thursday, but it wasn't a particularly strong episode either. Fortunately, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia featured the return of the waitress and was very funny.

Sunday, October 18th
Loved: Curb Your Enthusiasm (7x5), Dexter (4x4)
Liked: The Amazing Race (15x4), Bored to Death (1x5)
Meh: American Dad (5x5), The Simpsons (21x4)

The Simpsons' "Treehouse of Horror XX" was not the worst Halloween episode ever, but it was still well below average. I barely even remember watching this week's American Dad; it was just there. The results of this week's Amazing Race leg went a long way towards making up for last week's. And Bored to Death continued its streak of good but not great episodes with "The Case of the Lonely White Dove."

Curb Your Enthusiasm's "Denise Handicapped" was the funniest show of the week, largely because Larry actually had to face some consequences for pulling his typical bullshit. His conflict with Rosie O'Donnell was hilarious, and the meeting of his two handicapped dates was handled brilliantly.

Dexter was thankfully back to his murderer murdering ways with "Dex Takes a Holiday." And it was a top notch episode all around. Plus the ending was a complete surprise. I am definitely excited to see what happens next in this very strong fourth season.

Monday, October 19th
Loved: The Big Bang Theory (3x5)
Liked: House (6x5)
Meh: Heroes (4x6)

House's "Brave Heart" was an interesting episode that would have played even better if the promos hadn't spoiled all of the surprises. The most interesting thing about Heroes' "Tabula Rasa" was the promise of the return of Charlie; otherwise, it was bland and boring.

The Big Bang Theory's "The Creepy Candy Coating Corollary" guest starred the awesome Wil Wheaton playing evil Wil Wheaton, Sheldon's nemesis. Disappointingly, because it was hilarious, this was the B story of the episode and didn't get a lot of screen time. Fortunately, the A story was nearly as funny, with Penny setting Wolowitz up on a initially disastrous date with one of her friends.

Wednesday, October 21st
Loved: South Park (13x10)
Liked: Modern Family (1x5)

South Park's "W.T.F." was a terrific episode--genius, even. It's hard to believe that Trey and Matt haven't tackled the subject of wrestling yet in all the seasons of South Park. But I'm glad they finally did, with hilarious results. And they even killed Kenny for the first time in forever.

Modern Family had another strong episode this week. This cast is pretty damn amazing, and they really bring the funny. I'm finding that I really look forward to Wednesday nights because of this show. (Since I have to download South Park to watch it, I look forward to Thursday after work for South Park.)

About Me - Geek and Nerd

I have some more specific geeky topics coming soon in the About Me Blog Series, but first I have this general post to introduce how much of a fucking geek I really am. The fact that I am writing this post has clearly established that fact already, but sit back while the full extent of my geekiness is unleashed.

Before I start, it is important to try to define the terms "Geek" and "Nerd." Some people that are probably not geeks nor nerds might try to argue that there is no difference between these two terms; those people are wrong. However, not every geek and/or nerd will agree what that difference is. Google "geek vs nerd" and be prepared to read a hundred different takes on this dichotomy. However, every geek and/or nerd I know is a fan of the following Venn diagram, so I am going to present it as gospel:



I'm going to assume that my audience, consisting almost entirely of geeks and/or nerds, knows how to read a Venn diagram; in fact, the vast majority have probably already seen this. If this is new to you, don't get distracted by the addition of "Dweeb" and "Dork" to the diagram. Although I have definitely been called a dork numerous times throughout my life, those people were just misusing the term. I don't recall ever been called a dweeb, but that wouldn't have been too inaccurate. Anyway, that Venn diagram pretty much perfectly defines "Geek" and "Nerd," so now I can move on.

I personally consider myself to be more of a geek now, but I was definitely more of a nerd in school. The "more of a" qualifier is important, because I do consider myself to be both a geek and a nerd. Depending on the situation, I may drift in and out of the "Social Ineptitude" circle.

But, wait, how can that be? Someone is either socially inept or they aren't, right? I'd argue that the degree of social ineptitude can change significantly depending on circumstance. Even the nerdiest nerd probably has nerdy friends, and when with those friends, any social awkwardness will seem less significant. Compared to many of my friends in high school, I was borderline cool, but there was no question amongst the greater population of the school that I was a fucking nerd. There's some macrocosm vs microcosm shit involved here.

In high school and much of university, I was definitely socially inept--I was a nerd of the highest order. In high school, I dressed terribly, wore huge glasses, was a teacher's pet, and spent most of my Friday and Saturday nights at home. In university, I still dressed terribly, wore the same huge glasses, was fat, treated most people as beneath me, and spent most of my Friday and Saturday nights in the Engineering computer lab to get away from the noise of partying. Good times.

At some point, I became more socially aware. Without saying too much, it definitely had something to do with a certain person coming into my life. Suddenly I was aware of how terribly I was dressing, how out of fashion my glasses were, how fat I had become, and how much I had been wasting my life by avoiding social encounters. I broke out of my nerd shell and crossed into geekdom.

I am an introvert; this will never change. When hanging out with large groups of people, I tend to blend into the background, because I am not the type of person to interject into a conversation. If I am asked a question, I will respond. In the rare event that someone says something offensive about Star Trek or The Lord of the Rings, I may jump in to tell that person that he or she is a fucking idiot. But generally I will quietly observe and listen, and only speak when spoken to. I probably come off as socially awkward in these situations. When with smaller groups of people, preferably one or two, I believe that I come off better. I hope so at least.

But, anyway, enough said about social ineptitude. There is obviously much more to being a geek and/or nerd than that. Just look at that Venn diagram: you need intelligence and obsession as well.

I won't spend much time discussing intelligence. I am typically an intelligent person, although like everyone, I have done numerous stupid things over the course of my life. Having a good memory (not nearly eidetic, though) has often helped me seem smarter than I probably am, and is certainly responsible for much of my success in school. Memory is also an important component of my geekiness, especially when it comes to remembering useless trivia or facts about my favourite TV series, movies, and books. I don't know what my IQ is--and I don't particularly care--but I am generally strong in the areas of reason, logic, and problem solving, important components of intelligence. I don't think I will get many arguments that I belong in the "Intelligence" circle.

Nor should anyone argue that I belong in the "Obsession" circle. This is the fun area. Each geek and/or nerd is obsessed about something that the majority of the population considers to be lame, often including other geeks and/or nerds. Every geek and/or nerd is intelligent and probably socially awkward, but we all have very different obsessions.

On the mildly geeky side, I have interest in the sciences and engineering. Science shouldn't be considered a geeky interest, but society doesn't always make sense. On the getting geekier side, I have hobbies like homebrewing and computers and video games. But these interests and hobbies, albeit geeky, are not really obsessions.

I am obsessed with numerous sci-fi and fantasy television shows, movies, and books. Much of my spare time is spent indulging this obsession. This is the biggest thing that makes me a huge fucking geek. I have three posts coming up soon in the About Me series that will elaborate on some of my biggest sci-fi/fantasy obsessions of all time: Browncoat and Whedonite, Trekkie/Trekker, and Xenite. All three will be fun and interesting to write, especially the last, which was arguably my biggest obsession of all time.

Except possibly for The Lord of the Rings. This topic is also deserving of its own post, but I am aware of no label for a fan of The Lord of the Rings except geek and/or nerd. So, I guess I will end this post with some LOTR geekiness.

My obsession with The Lord of the Rings started in the summer of 2001. There was a lot of excitement in geek communities about the upcoming movie adaptation from Peter Jackson, and I decided I need to re-read the books before December rolled around and The Fellowship of the Ring hit movie theaters. I had read The Lord of the Rings many years earlier, grade 7 or 8 probably, and I had liked it enough to finish it, but it was a little boring, and it was certainly no Forgotten Realms. In 2001, I found my tastes had changed, and The Lord of the Rings novels blew me away.

But not as much as the movie adaptation of The Fellowship of the Ring did. I don't think I will ever have another movie experience so completely satisfying and exhilarating. It was surprisingly faithful to the source material, easily the best fantasy movie ever made, and quite possibly the best movie ever made period. Not only did I see Fellowship numerous times in the theater--nine times, I believe--but I became obsessed with the merchandising of the LOTR movies. I signed up for the fan club magazine, purchased many toy sets, bought any magazine with a LOTR cover story, bought every book about the movies that was released, bought every DVD set released, and began what would play a huge role in my financial undoing: my United Cutlery swords and Sideshow / Weta polystone statues collections.

Collections go hand in hand with geek obsessions. I did not have any intention of starting a collection when I bought my first sword (Sting replica), but it worked so well as wall decor that I decided I needed another sword for another wall. And then another sword for another wall. And you can guess the rest.

My first polystone statue was the Gollum figurine included with the Two Towers Extended Edition DVD gift set. Unlike my sword collection, where I started early on and was able to buy each one as they were released, I now had a two-year back catalog of statues to catch up on. So I got hooked on Ebay. I didn't buy every statue, only the ones that I really liked that weren't super rare and therefore super expensive. But all the statues were pretty expensive for what they are, so I quickly found myself spending way more money than I was earning... and well, that was a different blog post.

I think I saw The Two Towers seven times in the theater. It wasn't as faithful to the source material as Fellowship, nor was it quite as good; but it was still the second best fantasy movie ever made, and featured a battle sequence to die for. And the Extended Edition on DVD rectified many of my problems with it. I can't even begin to count the number of times I have watched Fellowship and Towers on DVD.

I think I have seen The Return of the King only six times, total--four times theatrically and twice on DVD. Not because it wasn't an unbelievably satisfying ending to the trilogy, because it was (although, again, the Extended Edition is way better than what played theatrically), but because it was the ending. One of the major reasons I re-watched Fellowship and Towers multiple times was the anticipation of what was left to come. If I couldn't yet watch the rest of the story, I would re-watch what was available to watch. Finally seeing the ending was a huge release. And I didn't feel like I needed to experience that release as many times as I experienced the build-up.

Due to increasingly poor finances, I was unable to continue collecting swords and statues anyway, but with the anticipation for The Return of the King finally out of the way, my desire to collect everything LOTR was also waning. I had a huge collection already, with almost all of the important swords, and a statue of each major character.

But I have saved the best part of my The Lord of the Rings obsession for last. It is not only the geekiest thing I have ever done, it was also a swan song of sorts for this obsession. I had a LOTR-themed wedding! I didn't even have to work very hard to convince my ex-wife, as she was also a LOTR geek. I'm not going to go into every detail of what we did to make this wedding work--and it (mostly) worked wonderfully!--but we had it all: LOTR-themed costumes, music, decorations, cakes, rings, signs. One of my highlights was cutting the cake with a replica of Aragorn's Elvish hunting knife. (Another highlight was my grandpa being the first to pull said knife out of its scabbard and hold it up triumphantly for pictures. And then my brother knighting me with it. Basically, the fact that I got married with a small sword hanging from my belt was awesome!) The wedding and the three parties that followed were such a geek triumph that it's pretty hard to imagine ever having another wedding.

And that is why I feel secure calling myself a geek. And a nerd. Just more geek.

Blogging because I can

As much fun as the About Me series has been, and as much as I enjoy writing posts like the Soundtrack to My Movie and each Week in Review, the meat of this blog, its reason for being, has so far been found in the first two "Blogging..." posts. These are the posts where I discuss and/or rant about current events in my personal life, rather than reminisce about the past or review the 12 hours of TV I watch each week.

As an aside, it is worth noting that that is all the TV I watch. I don't channel surf; nor do I use the TV as background noise. However, I do spend a significant amount of time watching older TV series on DVD or on my computer. I don't consider this activity to be "watching TV," because I am enjoying these shows on my own time and my own schedule. I may or may not have mentioned this before, but I generally prefer watching serialized TV series over watching movies. I've spent a lot of time lately catching up on the hilarious Flight of the Conchords, but will soon switch focus to Mad Men and Breaking Bad, and maybe try to get back into the bizarre True Blood.

So, anyway, yes, this is going to be another of those "Blogging..." posts.

Your honesty is better than your silence

So far, online dating has gone about as well as I expected it to: not very well at all. I have emailed a few women, less than half of them responded, and only one of them showed any potential of being what I am looking for.

In the first email, she quickly established a desire to meet in person, as she felt that online chatting was a waste of time due to the ease of lying. I was okay with that, but we agreed to wait until after the Thanksgiving weekend to make plans. In the meantime, we added each other as friends on Facebook, which was a pretty big risk on my part--have you seen some of the pictures in my profile? And then she vanished.

I've mentioned it before, but rejection in online dating typically comes in the form of silence. Silence is also often the tool of choice for online dating "break-ups." I personally never use that tool. If someone emails me and I am not interested, I will politely email them back and tell them that. I've only ever had to do that twice. (The most memorable time was when I actually knew the girl emailing me because she had dated my brother.)

One of the perks of membership on online dating sites is being able to see who views your profile and when. Thanks to this god-like power, I knew that the girl in question had viewed my profile again one day after my last email. I suspected a change of heart due to a more careful reading.

With over a week of email silence, I decided I needed to know what had happened. The "what happened?" email can be tough to write, so I took a different approach: pretend nothing suspicious was going on. My email just picked up where we left off, and I threw out some ideas for ways we could meet in person.

She replied quickly, confirming the change of heart; she now felt that meeting would be a waste of time. She apologized for not saying something earlier, which was nice, and then laid out the reasons for her change of heart. Some of the things she wrote were a little shocking, but ultimately pretty fair assessments from reading my profile. Most memorably, she wrote that she initially found my geekiness to be cute, but she later decided that she is looking for a "man's man." Some people might be insulted by that, but frankly, my ex-wife had the same complaint. I've had some pretty entertaining discussions with people about what exactly "man's man" means, but I know exactly what she meant by it.

Appreciative of her honesty, I wrote a short email thanking her and telling her that her honesty was better than her silence. As much as it sucked to read it, I am much happier actually knowing what went wrong.

Parallel to this nonsense, I was also in the middle of over a week of silence from my first online dating contact (ie. the first wink), which certainly made the situation even more frustrating. That silence recently ended and seems to have been a false alarm. However, no good explanation was offered, so the permanent silence may still be coming. I am definitely less confident now that we will meet anytime soon.

A divided/shared home no more

I meant to write something about this topic much earlier on the blog, but I kept forgetting. I still have lingering feelings in this area each day, so it's still a valid topic for a "Blogging..." post.

I'll start off by saying that I have a hard time sharing. This has always been the case, as long as I can remember. So, it was hard when my ex-wife first moved in with me into my apartment condominium. Suddenly there was this person constantly in my personal space and using all of my stuff. Ha, I make it sound awful!--it wasn't at all. I adjusted pretty quickly, because I wanted her there with me. Importantly, it was equally hard for her, because she also has a hard time sharing. I'd say it was even more of an adjustment for her, because she had to deal with my decorative and design choices.

So, it made twisted sense when we bought a new house that we would divide it up. We divided up the floors; I had free reign in the basement, but she would handle the decor for the main and second floors. We divided up the pantry. We divided up some of the shelves in the fridge. Not so atypically, we divided up the walk-in closet. Most notably, we also divided up the bathrooms; she would use the en suite, and I would use the second floor guest bathroom. Sharing the one bathroom in the condo had apparently been a challenge.

Before my ex-wife had even fully moved out of the house, I started taking over some of these formerly "shared" areas. The walk-in closet was first, the pantry was second, the fridge was third. This was a good exercise for coming to grips with what was happening; I was at least getting something good out of it. No more sharing!

In terms of the house's decor, I have more or less left everything the same, because ultimately I liked what she did with the place. And I wasn't completely without say on the main floor and upstairs decor; I certainly helped select the furniture. There are numerous decorative ledges where plants used to flourish (or not) which are now hastily decorated with books; that's pretty much the only change I've made. The house is cleaner and more open, partly because some furniture is gone, partly because there are less pets running around, but mostly because my ex-wife was a far messier person than I--I might even go so far as to call her a slob. She might also slug me the next time I see her.

The biggest adjustment I had to make was with the bathrooms. For two years, I was completely fine using the upstairs guest bathroom as my own, and staying the hell away from the en suite, as per strict standing orders. To make sure I wouldn't go anywhere near the en suite, my ex-wife kept it the messiest room in the house.

I spent the first two days of my first week in the house alone doing a thorough cleaning of every room. The last room I dared enter was the en suite. My ex-wife had expressed a desire to clean it herself when she came back in October, but I wasn't going to let it sit dirty and unused for a whole month. The en suite was/is my bathroom now.

And I love it. It's a far bigger and brighter bathroom than the guest bathroom, with much more shelf space; it might actually be big enough to share with someone, if you are into that kind of thing. The shower stall is surprisingly excellent; my ex-wife stopped using it a long time ago, so I assumed it sucked, but I have no problems with it, and it is way easier to keep clean than the guest bathroom's bathtub. I can also keep the guest bathroom pristine and clean for guests, because it isn't used daily.

But yet I still feel weird using it. Throughout the first week, every time I went upstairs to get ready for bed, I would walk into the guest bathroom, quickly realize my toothbrush wasn't there anymore, and then move to the en suite. I'm well past that; I only use the guest bathroom to wash out beer making equipment. But I still feel a bit like an intruder every time I walk into the en suite. This room was off-limits for two years. Now it is entirely mine to do with as I please. That takes some time to get used to.

There could be a problem here for the future. The longer I have the house to myself, the harder it is going to be to consider having someone move in with me--the harder it will be to share the house again. It is entirely possible of course that my house will never again be shared. I may live alone until I die. I may move into a smaller place at some point. If I meet someone rich (please!), I may move in with them (yikes!). We may decide to start fresh in a new shared place together. Who knows? All I know is that I suck at sharing.

About Me - Computer Scientist and Electrical Engineer

My About Me Blog Series has been going pretty well, I think. The first four posts have been some of the most fun and interesting for me to write. I have seven left to go, so it's time to pick up the pace a little and bang out some of the less interesting ones. Like this one.

According to the nicely framed degrees from the University of Saskatchewan (or Universitas Saskatchewanensis) hanging in my office, I have: a Bachelor of Science in Engineering, Electrical Engineering, with Distinction, twenty-fourth day of May, two-thousand; and a Baccalaurei Scientiae Gradum III Annorum, Magna cum Laude, bis millesimo, mensis Maii, die vicesimo tertio. Yeah, that's right, one is in English and the other is in fucking Latin. The Latin one is loosely translated as: Bachelor of Science, 3-year, with Great Distinction. I don't believe it specifies anywhere on the degree--it's in fucking Latin so I can't be sure!--that my major was in Computer Science.

Although I give these degrees prominent placement in my office, they don't really mean much anymore. Once you've been working full-time for nearly ten years (I'm at 9.5 years right now), what you took in school to get here is pretty irrelevant. The degrees got me in the door. My work performance--ha!--keeps me here.

To get these two degrees, I went to university in Saskatoon for five years, and split my time between the Engineering and Arts & Science faculties. (Really, the computer science degree is pretty laughable, being a 3-year degree. Does that make me only 3/4 a computer scientist?) The first four years were dominated by difficult engineering and computer science classes, with the fifth year being predominantly cake Arts electives. I loved fifth year!

Throughout high school, I always loved computer science and physics classes the most, so it made sense that I wanted to continue with these subjects in university. I didn't decide to go into engineering until the twelth grade, when my guidance counsilor explained the difference between an engineer's salary and a computer scientist's salary, and explained that engineering was effectively the practical application of physics. When I learned that many schools combined computer science and engineering, often naming the program Computer Engineering, I had found my discipline of choice.

Picking a school was a challenge. I don't want to spend much time bragging about high school, but I was the top student in my school in grades 10, 11, and 12, earning the bronze Governor General's academic medal. My academic average from grade 12 was 99.8%. I was pretty much good to go anywhere. When an opportunity came up to visit the University of British Columbia's campus, thanks to the Physics Olympiad program--long story!--I accepted it gladly. And it was a great place. I wanted to go there.

But there was the small issue of cost. I had received an entrance scholarship from UBC of $6,000, which sounds pretty solid, but the estimates for living expenses in BC were outrageous. I had also received an entrance scholarship for $4,200 from the UofS, and the cost of living in Saskatoon was much more reasonable. The UofS did not have a Computer Engineering program, but they did have a 5-year dual degree program, where you would earn both a 4-year Electrical Engineering degree and a 3-year Computer Science degree. I've already spoiled my decision.

As an interesting aside, the year after I graduated high school, 1996, the University of Regina began a program to offer a full scholarship to the top student in each Regina high school. I was really pissed! I had never seriously considered the UofR, because they didn't have any Computer-Engineering-like program at the time, but with an offer of a full scholarship, I certainly think I would have stayed in Regina for school. It's hard to imagine how different my life would be right now if the UofR had started this scholarship program one year earlier.

As someone used to scoring 100% on all of my high school exams, university was a shock to my system. I failed my first ever exam in second semester calculus (MATH 124)--fuck, I hate integrals! I was happy with high 70s and low 80s in many of my first year classes. Geology for Engineering (GEO E 118), at 78, was my lowest grade. I managed to pull off two 90s in first year, not coincidentally in Modern Physics (EP 128) and Introduction to Computer Science (CMPT 122). To give you a feel for my course load, I took twelve 3-credit classes in first year, six per semester, plus the pointless 1-credit Introduction to Engineering (graded only as Pass/Fail).

Although I had gone to the UofS for the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science dual degree program, you don't have to choose your specific engineering discipline until you are entering second year. I had worked all summer as a survey assistant in the area of municipal civil engineering, and I found it rather interesting--more interesting than electrical circuits. I strongly considered abandoning Electrical and entering the Civil Engineering program, but that would have also meant abandoning Computer Science. There was also the Engineering Physics option, which was similar to Electrical Engineering, just more hardcore on the physics, and could also be combined with Computer Science for the dual degree program. Obviously, I ultimately stuck with my original plans.

My second year was a huge improvement on the first, grades wise, good enough to earn me some new scholarships from the university. I scored four 90s, including my personal university best 96 in Linear Systems and Design (GE 220), and my lowest grade was a 79 in Electronics I (EE 221). Second year also had six classes per semester: ten 3-credit courses and one 6-credit course, plus a 2-credit lab class

Third and fourth years were pretty terrible by my standards. Too many classes, too much material I hated, too many professors I couldn't stand and/or understand, and too much homework. I had fifteen--yes, 15!--3-credit courses in third year and thirteen in fourth year. My Electrical Engineering focus was on digital systems and communications, and I did well enough in those classes to get by, but I was really questioning my choice of discipline at this point. My lowest university grade was a 58 in third year's Engineering Design I (EE 318); that was pretty distressing for me. I still managed to keep the majority of my classes in the 70s and 80s through the third and fourth years, but there were no 90s to speak of. My best class in third year was Electronics II (EE 321) with an 87. The best I could manage in fourth year was an 84 in Engineering Economics (GE 348). My Computer Science classes weren't really going that much better, although I managed to maintain low 80s.

I've already mentioned how much I loved fifth year. My fifth year was basically the experience of most first year Arts students, plus a huge 6-credit engineering design course (EE 438) that I put off from fourth year. The Arts classes were easy, but also interesting in the way that no engineering class ever could be. I still had a pretty heavy course load (seven 3-credit courses and three 6-credit courses) but it didn't feel nearly as heavy with all the Arts electives in the mix. My grades in the first and second year Arts electives in my fifth year went a long way towards raising my average, earning me the Magna cum Laude on my Latin degree. My best grade was a 96 in the 6-credit General Psychology (PSY 110). I still had one shitty class: a 67 in Heat Transfer in Electrical Engineering (ME 435).

The worst thing about fifth year was the job search. (The best thing about fifth year was a girl--but that's a long, long story that I would never share on this blog.) I didn't want to work in Regina. I wanted to work in Saskatoon or Calgary. That didn't turn out so well. I was only ever offered one job, it was in Regina, and I had little choice but to take it as I was running out of time to find something else. Even during my first year working in Regina, I was still constantly looking for work in Saskatoon or Calgary. Eventually I gave up.

Since I started working full-time in May 2000, I have held two engineering jobs, both in the same power utility. My first job was frankly awful, and I don't know how I tolerated it for five and a half years. I worked with a good friend, which helped, and I got paid a lot of money to sit at my desk and write songs, which also helped. I started in my second position in January 2006, and it was immediately much better. It has gone way downhill since then, but I get paid way too much money to complain too loudly. It's also still marginally better than the first job.

Very little of what I learned in university has helped me with my career. I always look at the university experience as less about learning about specific topics that are going to come in handy for the rest of your life--because they won't!--and more about proving to prospective employers that you can learn period. In my first position, I did almost no computer programming, so most of my skills in that area have been replaced with useless memorization about when to use root-3 and when not to use root-3 in a power equation. In this second position, computer programming skills are somewhat useful, but it is also pretty easy to fake it and get by. Neither of my jobs have required someone with the electrical engineering background that I have--except on paper, where it was a requirement. So, that's something, I guess.

I have to admit that I had more fun writing this post than I thought I would. The decisions that I made in pursuing this career path that I am on have easily had the most impact on where I am in my life right now. Likewise, any career decisions I make in the future will probably have a profound impact on where my life takes me. Theoretically, somewhere out there, in many parallel universes, there are a number of different Scotts that attended the UofR or UBC instead of the UofS, or decided to go into Civil Engineering, or held out for a job in Calgary--how different are their lives right now?

Week in Review, Oct 8 to 14

The Week in Music

While browsing the recently released CDs at Best Buy this weekend, I was surprised to find new albums from Brand New and Moneen. Brand New's "Daisy" was released on September 22nd and Moneen's "The World I Want to Leave Behind" was released on September 15th. In a way, I'm glad I stumbled upon them this way, rather than anticipating their release for months in advance, because I would have been even more disappointed with any extra build-up.

Brand New's "Daisy" feels more like a loosely assembled collection of B-sides and unreleased tracks than a follow-up to the powerful and impressive "The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me" (2006). Opening track, "Vices," is harder than anything Brand New has recorded to date and is awesome because of that (although the gospel hymn that opens the track annoys the shit out of me), and there are a number of good to great songs throughout ("At the Bottom," "You Stole," "Noro"), but there are also more songs on this album that do absolutely nothing for me than on any previous Brand New album. This album easily ranks at the bottom of Brand New's discography for me.

Moneen has always been a band that I like and respect, but not necessarily love. "Are We Really Happy with Who We Are Right Now?" (2003) is a great album, and 2006's "The Red Tree" is pretty good, but 2009's "The World I Want to Leave Behind" has left me feeling pretty indifferent. This album is so mellow in comparison to their earlier works that it almost sounds like a completely different band. Not that that's a particularly bad thing, by itself, but the songs are also lacking the pop hooks I've come to expect from Moneen. It's not a bad collection of songs by any means ("The Glasshouse" is awesome), and is a more enjoyable listen than Brand New's "Daisy," but I just expected more.

The Week in Television

I'm still experimenting with the format of this weekly blog post, trying to find a sweet spot of time spent vs. purpose vs. clarity. This week I'm breaking the shows into lists of Loved, Liked, Meh, Disliked, and Hated, and then if I have any specific comments to make, they will show up below the list. Hopefully no shows will be Hated, because then why am I watching?

Thursday, October 8th
Loved: The Office (6x4)
Liked: Fringe (2x4), It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (5x4), Parks and Recreation (2x4)
Meh: The Mentalist (2x3)

The Office's "Niagara," aka "The Jim and Pam Wedding Episode," was surprisingly satisfying for me. It's a little strange to think of this as the fourth episode of the season, since an episode with this much resolution is generally saved for the season finale (or even series finale) of most shows. This episode had lots of laughs, a few extremely awkward moments, some genuinely touching scenes, and good use of almost all of the primary and secondary characters. It is the delicate balance between the silly and the serious that makes The Office such a great show, and this episode was an excellent example of that.

Parks and Recreation and Always Sunny were both really funny this week, but Always Sunny will probably never be a Loved entry for me because it has no heart whatsoever, and Parks' characters don't resonate with me nearly as well as The Office characters.

Fringe's "Momentum Deferred" finally offered at least a partial reveal of William Bell's mission for Olivia Dunham, mostly confirming what the audience had already figured out for themselves. Nonetheless, this was a quality Fringe episode, despite the following nitpicks. There was a lot of suspense leading up to it, but the expected showdown between Charlie and Dunham was somewhat anti-climactic. And Walter's storyline involving a former test subject was interesting, but strangely pointless when you think about it.

The Mentalist actually did something interesting and unusual this week, having the murder of the week involve one of the principal characters as a suspect and having the murderer be a multi-episode recurring character. Unfortunately, despite this change up, the ending still came down to the same old, same old predictable Jane entrapment scheme.

Friday, October 9th
Loved: Dollhouse (2x3)

Oh no, getting Firefly flashbacks here!--Dollhouse is now airing out of order. This excellent episode, written by the always awesome Tim Minear, was obviously meant to air second this season, with the hilarious sequences introducing Paul Ballard to handling duties. This episode brought the funny and the creepy in equal measure, like any good Joss Whedon show should.

Sunday, October 11th
Liked: The Amazing Race (15x3), Bored to Death (1x4), Curb Your Enthusiasm (7x4), Dexter (4x3), The Family Guy (8x3)
Meh: American Dad (5x4)
Disliked: The Simpsons (21x3)

There was a lot of good and bad in this Sunday's TV, but not much awesome. The Amazing Race was entertaining, but the end result was the loss of my favourite team, damn it! Bored to Death was goofier than it's ever been, which is both a good thing--because it was different--and a worrying thing--because I don't want it to turn into that permanently. Dexter was distracted by suburban silliness and didn't kill anyone, but the season still has impressive momentum. The Family Guy actually had its best outing of the season so far, with a funny and completely nonsensical spoof of "Spies Like Me." American Dad somehow managed to be half hilarious and half completely awful.

Curb Your Enthusiasm's "The Hot Towel" took a break from the Seinfeld reunion storyline to have Larry David torment a poor doctor and destroy the self esteem of a teenager. As awful as it sounds, I can often empathize with Larry David's social difficulties, but here I was struggling. It was both hilarious and unbearably uncomfortable.

This week's The Simpsons was borderline for Hated. It was an awful Marge episode, and also completely derivative of many previous Marge episodes, some that were classics and some that were also awful. It's pretty depressing to think that The Simpsons has so many more shitty seasons (11 to 20) than classic seasons (2 to 8). Can I even consider this to be one of my favourite shows of all time anymore?

Monday, October 12th
Liked: The Big Bang Theory (3x4), Heroes (4x5)
Meh: House (6x4)

Heroes' "Hysterical Blindness" was the best episode of this season so far for me, not that that says a lot. I like the new characters better than most of the original characters at this point, so the more scenes with the deaf girl and the carnival crew, the better. I also liked the reveal of invisible girl--that was a good surprise in a show that is sadly lacking good surprises.

Both The Big Bang Theory and House were typical episodes this week, which basically means that The Big Bang Theory was funny and the characters were as endearing as ever, and that House was good when House was on the screen and lousy when he was not.

Wednesday, October 14th
Liked: Modern Family (1x4), South Park (13x9)

Modern Family continues to be a surprisingly funny and entertaining new show. Ed O'Neill steals the show each week, although Ty Burrell as Phil, the "cool dad," is my favourite character.

South Park's "Butters' Bottom Bitch" started off amusing, slowly building up to hilarious right around Butters' visit to a pimp conference. Because of the subject matter, I can't say I loved this episode, but I certainly laughed more than last week.

About Me - Singer-songwriter

Yeah, that's right, I'm a singer-songwriter. I'm not saying I'm great at it. I'm certainly not out there playing shows and sharing my music. I'm strictly a hobby musician (at this time, anyway). I'm also really out of practice, since I basically stopped writing songs after the song I used to propose marriage in 2004. I also stopped playing guitar around the same time. But there's nothing like being single again to reignite my song-writing passion.

But I'm way ahead of myself there. I should start at the beginning.

I started taking guitar lessons around age 10 or 11. I know this because I remember that I was given the choice between getting a guitar and starting lessons or continuing my minor hockey career, moving from Atom to Peewee. I remember being frightened of the body-checking that would be introduced in Peewee, so I went with the guitar and lessons. In retrospect, that was definitely a good choice! I wasn't very good at hockey anyway. Not that I'm great with a guitar, either, but I digress.

I liked my guitar teacher, and he taught me everything I needed to know, from notes, to chords, to pentatonic scales. There was as much music theory as there was guitar technique in his lessons, which was very valuable. To this day, I still rely on the pentatonic scale for improvising solos, and I still play most chords the way he taught me. Unfortunately, I have long forgotten how to note-read, relying entirely on tablatures instead. I can't remember how long these guitar lessons continued, but it was probably a couple of years at least.

Somewhere around 12 or 13, I started writing songs, and naturally I wanted to record them for others to hear. I don't remember how I convinced my parents to buy me a $500 Tascam 4-track tape recorder, but I believe that giving up the guitar lessons was part of it. There is no question that I got their money's worth out of that 4-track.

I don't know how many songs I recorded on that 4-track, but it was likely around 100. I have three cassette tapes full of songs from that time, and those are only the songs that I finished to the point that I wanted to share with a musician friend. There are twice as many songs that were left unfinished on my master tapes and are now inaccessible to me. That well-used 4-track sadly kicked the bucket during my second or third year of university.

Discography, Song-writing Era 1, Cassette:
Fantasms in Conjure-gation (1994)
Elsewhere Not Here (1995)
A Learning Experience (1996)

I can't help but shake my head and laugh when listening to the awesomely titled "Fantasms in Conjure-gation," which is basically my greatest hits album from most of my teen years. As you can imagine, there is a huge variety of songs and song quality to be found on this cassette. The highlight is the "awesome" AD&D-influenced suite, "Conjure," "Dispel," and "Rituals."

"Elsewhere Not Here" was my first attempt at a theme album and was entirely recorded in late 1994 and early 1995. It is also much more consistent in quality than Fantasms. In fact, some of these songs have aged surprisingly well, despite a lot of lyrical immaturity.

"A Learning Experience" was written and recorded during my first year of university and is a much more mature and interesting collection of songs. My first two cassettes were only ever shared with a musician friend, but ALE reached a wider audience among my few university friends. The song "CHEM 111.3" was a particular favourite of my friends, to the point where they almost wore out the tape rewinding and replaying it. The standout track for me will always be the mysteriously titled "Z."

After the death of the 4-track, I stopped recording music for a few years. I didn't stop writing new songs, but they were never committed to tape. Because of this, most of the songs I wrote during that period (approx. 1998 to 2000), have long ago faded from my memory, and all I am left with is a sheet of lyrics with possibly a few chords or tabs scrawled in the margins.

My songwriting process has always been the same. For me, a song starts with the lyrics and a melody in my head. Often that is where the songwriting ends, and I am just left with mediocre poetry. But sometimes I will sit down with my guitar and this new set of lyrics, and I will work hard to find the notes and chords that work with the melodies. If I really like a set of lyrics, I will often settle with music that at least doesn't ruin the song.

When I started working my first full-time job in May of 2000, I found myself sitting in front of a computer for 8 hours a day with often half to three quarters of that 8 hours as spare time. I would spend hours each day writing new lyrics in Microsoft Word, often two or three a day, and then take those lyrics home to try to make songs. I have a binder full of these songs at home. The quality varies a lot, as you would expect, but many of the best songs I have ever written came from this time period (2000 to 2002). I needed a way to record and share some of these songs.

At first, I resorted to recording songs live using my DV camcorder, just me and my acoustic guitar. I sacrificed sound quality, but gained a spontaneity and rawness that few of my 4-tracked songs had ever had. I recorded approximately 30 songs this way, sharing 24 of them on two CDs that I handed out to friends and family. This was actually the first time that most people had ever heard any of my music.

But, now that I had a decent paying job, I knew it was time to take my music recording to the next level. So, I invested in a home computer with music studio capabilities, and began recording full-band songs using acoustic and electric guitars, keyboards, vocals, samples, and drum loops. This was obviously a learning experience, and I spent hours mixing songs to try to bring out the best in them. The end result was "Strangers from Distant Lands," my second theme album, and my third and final (to date) album on CD.

Discography, Song-writing Era 2, CD
Everything is Good (2001)
Time & Dreams Fade (2001)
Strangers from Distance Lands (2002)

When I look back at my three CDs, I actually find that, on the whole, I prefer the first two that were recorded live on my camcorder. "Everything is Good," so titled because that was the first song I recorded, is marginally the better of the two, mostly because of personal favourite songs like "Resonance," "Step One?" "The Curl," and "Je Souhaite." Not that "Time & Dreams Fade" doesn't also have some of my favourite songs: "Perpetually Single," "Embryonethics," and "Damaged Divinity."

The creation of "Strangers from Distant Lands" was an excellent experience, but I lost a little something in the songs with the approach I took. My biggest gripe is that I didn't deliver on the vocals for some of the songs as well as I know I could have. The main reason for this, and it's something I haven't mentioned yet, is that all of these CDs were recorded in a far-from-soundproof apartment suite.

When playing the guitar and singing at the same time, I worried less about the racket I was making, because my neighbours were hearing the complete song. When recording my third CD track by track, I had to sing the vocal parts loudly with the background music only in the headphones I was wearing. I'm sure my neighbours wondered why I was strangling so many cats every day. And feeling guilty about this, I held myself back in many places where I needed to let loose. I hold no illusions that I am a great singer, but I am a better singer than some of these songs show. To try to hide the weaknesses in the vocal master tracks, I overused vocal layering in some songs, which also does not help.

The songs that hold up the best on Strangers are my re-recorded versions of "Everything is Good" tracks "Je Souhaite," which features mostly whispered vocals, and "Everything is Good" itself, which was actually recorded live and then slightly overdubbed. I also love my two instrumental only tracks, the title track and "Ageless Refrain."

My fourth CD would have been (and may still be) titled "The Trouble with Time Travel." This album was written between 2003 and 2004, and would have included songs about moving into my new condo and meeting a certain special someone. I recorded a demo of one of the songs live on my camcorder in 2003 (for old times' sake) and created a quick multi-track demo of a second song in early 2005, but none of the other songs were ever committed to tape.

And then I effectively stopped being a singer-songwriter for approximately 5 years. I'm not going to try to explain this gap. I don't know if I understand it myself. It just happened. I didn't completely stop writing songs, but my output was way down to one or two songs a year, and I hardly played my guitar anymore. I once told a musician friend that most of my lyrics came from a dark, lonely place; from 2004 to 2009, this place no longer existed.

But I'm not back in that same place now, either. I have found some inspiration and spare time to write and record again, but I am not nearly as "dark" and/or lonely now as I was then. My life has improved in almost all ways, other than the one. I am not writing two to three songs a day. I have only written two songs in the past month. Maybe if I didn't have this blog as a time waster and a place to vent, I would waste time and vent by writing more songs.

I bought a new guitar on September 1st and my first task with the new guitar was to write a new song basically on the spot. Some of my favourite songs were written this way, with music and lyrics created spontaneously.

"Redefinition" was the song I wrote on September 1st to break in my new guitar. This was my first full day alone in my now much bigger feeling house, and I was obviously grappling with some intense emotions. As I mentioned above, the lyrics and music were created together and spontaneously, and the end result is pretty good, I think.

Today I am doing something that I have never done before. And I am hiding it behind the jump.

About Me - Homebrewer

Prior to the extremely recent addition of "Singer-songwriter" (implying nothing about quality--post coming soon!) to my About Me list, "Homebrewer" was the newest label. I have only been brewing my own beer since March of 2008. Prior to talking about what got me into homebrewing, and the whats and hows of homebrewing, I want to talk about my experiences with beer in general.

But before I even get into that, I want to mention a small change in blog policy for this post. When I started up this blog, I made a conscious decision to never use other people's names in any of the posts. That accounts for the overuse of "ex-wife" and "friend" throughout the posts so far. I realize that most people reading this blog know who my ex-wife is, and probably usually know which friend(s) I am referring to, but I wanted to maintain their anonymity because anyone could stumble across this publicly accessible blog. I obviously don't care about anonymity for myself, but I won't make that decision for others. So, having said all that, I am dropping that policy for this post, because I'm confident that none of the people named are going to care.

For most of my life, I hated the taste of beer and constantly wondered what the big deal was. My experience with beer was limited to the awful Coors Light, Molson Canadian, and Labatt Blue lagers. I didn't have any interest in drinking beer at all until my friend Simon and I took a business trip to Montreal in the fall of 2006, and he introduced me to styles of beer I didn't know existed. I know Simon is pretty proud of this conversion story, and I guess rightly so.

What was the beer that really made me reassess my opinion? Guinness. I know there are a large number of people out there that think Guinness is disgusting, but I was intrigued by the dark colour, the incredible head, and the roasted barley malt taste. (Now that I've experienced stout beers that put Guinness to shame in every way, I just refer to Guinness as my gateway stout. And when I drink Guinness now, I get very little of the roasted barley taste, because I feel it is overshadowed by the souring that is unique to Guinness.)

When you have no interest in drinking beer, it's surprisingly easy to get through high school and university without ever getting drunk. It probably also helps that everyone in high school and university hated me; possibly because I was that guy that was always just drinking water. I have one pretty fucked up story involving drinking mass quantities of water that could have actually killed me, but this is not the time nor place for that. I also have some pretty funny stories involving bars and restaurants and their often ridiculous water policies; but no, this is supposed to be a post about beer!

It will then come as no surprise that since my discovery of good beer in late 2006, I have been drunk an embarrassing number of times for an adult of 30-some years. It is worth noting that I did actually get drunk one time prior to this, on a business trip to Toronto in late 2000; free wine was the culprit there, so that's all I will say about it. Between 2000 and 2006, my alcohol consumption was limited to small quantities of wine coolers and fruit flavored wine beverages (Boones!), never drinking enough to be more than slightly buzzed. Wow, how times have changed!

With a newfound appreciation for the different styles of beer available, my beer education was just beginning. I started buying different beers from the liquor stores, including good stuff from craft breweries like Paddock Wood, and trying sample trays at brewpubs like Brewster's and Bushwakker. Although I found a lot to love in India pale ales and red ales and wheat beers, the stouts (and porters--arguably a sweeter stout) were always my favourite.

And that brings me--finally!--to homebrewing. When Simon first mentioned that he was brewing beer in his house, I was skeptical to say the least. I'm going to disregard Simon's first attempt to brew beer; fondly remembered as "dirt beer." This story starts with Simon, his friends Trevor and Andy, and a Brewhouse Cream Ale beer kit. Actually, no, this story starts with me sampling the end result of that beer kit and being very pleasantly surprised.

The first motivation to get into homebrewing is typically cost. A beer kit can cost between $30 and $50, and if you follow the instructions explicitly, you will end up with nearly 23L of beer, or typically 66 330mL bottles. That is some cheap beer! If the quality is comparable to commercial beers, why wouldn't you brew your own beer? There is obviously also a small initial cost with the beer making supplies. But for less than $100, you can easily purchase everything you will ever need to make your own beer from kits.

My first kit was a Festa Brew Double Oatmeal Stout. This was a higher end kit that didn't require any addition of water. The wort bag was the full 23L. Brewhouse kits are 15L of wort, requiring the addition of 8L of water. Brewer's Spring kits are 8L of concentrated wort, requiring the addition of 15L of water. Pro tip: the less water you add, the stronger the beer you will make, albeit less of it; also, more body and more taste are likely results.

The following are the basic steps to make beer from a kit:

1. Sanitize everything. This step is easily the worst. The more you do this, the more shortcuts you will take.
2. Dump the wort in the primary fermenter. For beginners, a plastic pail is a typical primary fermenter.
3. Add water to the primary fermenter to get the volume you require. Stir vigorously.
4. Use a hydrometer to measure your original gravity (OG).
5. Add the yeast to the primary fermenter.
6. Let sit for 3-5 days. After a day, you should notice a layer of foam forming on top of the wort (krausen).
7. Measure your specific gravity (SG). The gravity should have decreased significantly at this point.
8. Transfer the beer into a sanitized secondary fermenter for aging. The secondary fermenter is usually a glass or plastic carboy with a fermentation air-lock.
9. Let sit for 1-2 weeks. If curious, periodically measure the SG.
10. Measure your final gravity (FG). With your OG and your FG, you can calculate your alcohol content. Google it.
11. Transfer the beer into a sanitized plastic pail, mixing in a small amount of dextrose sugar (or dry malt extract) for bottle conditioning (ie. carbonation).
12. Transfer the beer into sanitized bottles. Cap the bottles.
13. Let sit for 1-2 weeks.
14. Enjoy!

If you don't skimp on sanitation, it is nearly impossible to screw up a beer kit. You will soon be drinking some delicious cheap beer that you will be proud to say you created.

I'm not going to lie and say that I didn't have some challenges with beer kits. Wort spillage--check. Oxidation--check. Shitty, completely ruined batch--check. When I made my first kit, I was constantly checking the specific gravity, to make sure it was fermenting. And then I worried about adding too much sugar for bottle conditioning--I didn't want exploding bottles in my basement. But as you do more and more kits, you stop worrying completely. Words of wisdom from Charlie Papazian: "Relax, don't worry, have a homebrew!"

My personal favourite beer kit is Brewhouse's Munich dark lager. I have made that kit three times with very consistent and pleasant results.

For some people, beer making stops there. Kit after kit, style after style; guaranteed consistency and quality. Boring!

The next step most people take, if kits just aren't quite cutting it anymore, is "kit plus." With Brewhouse kits, it is easy to replace the 8L of added water with a steeped concoction of whatever you'd like. I've tried adding oatmeal and chocolate malt and cocoa powder to stout and Munich dark lager kits with varying degrees of success. Trevor and Simon have had success adding more hops to IPA kits, adding coffee to a stout kit, and using Belgian wit beer yeasts in boring kits to completely change the taste, but had less success when they tried adding tea to a kit.

If you're still looking for more challenge and customization options, some people would suggest that you next try brewing from malt extracts. I'm going to tell you to not bother. Just skip to all-grain already!

As a brief aside, Simon and Trevor have not limited their homebrewing efforts to beer only. They have had reasonable success creating mead by fermenting honey. I have yet to make my own mead, but I do have some excess honey and have been thinking about it for a while.

In fall 2008, Simon, Trevor, and I joined Ale and Lager Enthusiasts of Saskatchewan. On the first Wednesday of every month, we go to "beer meeting" at Bushwakker, which generally means that two of us get wasted drunk on beer samples and Bushwakker pints, and the third has to drink only a moderate amount of beer samples and drive us home. Beer meeting is obviously a highlight of the month, even if it's your turn to be designated driver.

Thanks to ALES club meetings, I have discovered a love of fruit lambics, as well as almost all Belgian beers, and have been able to sample some excellent and some terrible beers, meads, and ciders. I also had a great time volunteering as a beer server for the club's beer competition in the spring. And I really enjoyed the terrific ALES club beer and food potluck.

Most senior members of ALES are all-grain brewers, as you would expect. And we were inspired by some of the beers they brought to the meetings for us to sample. Simon took the lead this past April, deciding one day that he was going to make a mash tun out of a cheap cooler. We have never looked back.

All grain brewing is easier than it sounds. On many Saturday afternoons, I get together with Simon and Trevor, and sometimes our friend and benefactor Paul, and we brew a 5-gallon all-grain batch of beer. These afternoons consist of a lot of sitting around, drinking, and waiting. Grinding the grains is probably the most annoying task, but once that is out of the way, you just dump the grains in the mash tun, add hot water, wait an hour, add more hot water, wait 10 minutes, add more hot water to sparge, boil the new wort you have created for an hour, add hops as desired, and then cool before tossing in the yeast. Like I said, a lot of waiting. Saturday afternoons are perfect for brewing beer.

And that's pretty much my story. Homebrewing is an excellent hobby for the beer enthusiast. I look forward to many years of perfecting our technique, trying new styles, winning some competitions, and simply having a great time sharing good brews with good friends.

Week in Review, Oct 1 to 7

I didn't listen to any new music this week, nor watch any new movies, nor play any new video games, nor finish a book, so it's back to all TV, all the time in this Week in Review.

The Week in Television

I did manage to catch up on most of the missed TV from last week, so here's some quick thoughts: American Dad (5x1) was in typical sometimes inspired, sometimes tired form; The Simpsons (21x1) was written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg (Superbad!), and had flashes of brilliance, but felt way too much like a mix and mash retread of a couple of classic episodes; House (6x2) was an okay attempt at a series reboot, but featured a ridiculously sci-fi video game concept that constantly took me out of the House universe; Modern Family (1x2) was the second funniest thing I saw all week, after Curb, earning this series a permanent place on my watchlist.

Thanks to two sick days at the start of this week, I was able to watch every TV show on my list this week (with the exception of Merlin, but I'm in no rush to watch that, and am two weeks behind there). It's nice to start off the new week with no backlog.

Thursday, October 1st
Now this is more like it!: Fringe (2x3)
The gang deals with the recession in the most ridiculous and hilarious ways possible: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (5x3)
For the first time in the history of this show, I didn't see the end coming: The Mentalist (2x2)
Good, but not great; too much Jim and Michael, not enough Andy: The Office (6x3)
Much, much better than last week; maybe even funnier than The Office this week: Parks and Recreation (2x3)

Fringe is at its best when it is clear that the crazy-shit-of-the-week ties into the bigger mythology, and "Fracture" delivered there. We still have no answers about what Olivia learned from William Bell, but the story is developing nicely, and I don't mind a wait if the payoff is worth it. It was a little strange to have no sign of Charlie this week, but I guess that would have been an unnecessary distraction.

Parks and Recreation's "Beauty Pageant" was possibly the series' best episode to date. The more Tom Haverford, the better, I say! Plus, finally some good use of the criminally underused April. I wasn't a fan of last week's episode at all, but I will admit that the introduction of officer Dave (Louis C.K.) as Leslie Knope's new love interest was the highlight. That storyline is already paying off with some big laughs.

Friday, October 2nd
The most intellectual series on TV; even a mediocre filler episode can be intriguing: Dollhouse (2x2)

Sunday, October 4th
Entertaining as ever--and wow, Lance is an asshole!: The Amazing Race (15x2)
What do you even say?--sometimes inspired, sometimes tired, as always (also see 5x1): American Dad (5x2)
The therapist sequences were funny, but this was the weakest episode so far: Bored to Death (1x3)
The beginning of the Seinfeld reunion does not disappoint: Curb Your Enthusiasm (7x3)
An excellent, tension-packed episode, and with barely any annoying baby action: Dexter (4x2)
Other than poor Turtle, a ridiculously happy ending for everyone: Entourage (6x12)
If not for Quagmire discovering internet porn, this would have been a strangely boring episode: The Family Guy (8x2)
That's two episodes in a row that weren't awful--still not great, though: The Simpsons (21x2)

Curb Your Enthusiasm's "The Reunion" was even better than I expected. All the principals from Seinfeld are here, and many are funnier than ever. Jason Alexander, in particular, delivers some huge laughs in this episode. As you would expect from the twisted mind of Larry David, there are numerous ridiculous complications with hilarious solutions. I can't wait to see how this Seinfeld reunion storyline plays out over this season.

Entourage's sixth season finale, "Give a Little Bit," features so many happy endings that it felt too sickly-sweet. The best happy ending was Lloyd and Ari, back together, better than ever. Their storyline was the highlight of a really weak season, so it makes sense that their ending would have the most earned payoff. The biggest WTF happy ending was Eric and Sloane getting back together. Turtle is still saddled with a lame relationship storyline that belongs on a different show. And Vince still has no storyline whatsoever. And just when I start wondering again why I even watch this fucking lame show, Matt Damon shows up in a scene stealing guest spot.

Monday, October 5th
A great A-plot (Sheldon, Penny, and chocolates) with an only okay B-plot: The Big Bang Theory (3x3)
Bizarre, disjointed, pointless, silly, nonsensical; this was a sad swan song for the usually awesome Bryan Fuller: Heroes (4x4)
The marginally kinder, gentler House is fun--but Foreman and Chase are fucking awful doctors!: House (6x3)

Wednesday, October 7th
Not as brilliantly funny as last week, but I still laughed throughout: Modern Family (1x3)
Some moments of genius, but overall a disappointing return: South Park (13x8)

Modern Family is not the type of show that I normally like. It's more grounded in the reality of family and relationships than most comedies I enjoy. Not that there aren't moments of wonderful absurdity, but most of the humour comes from hilarious characters dealing with believable family challenges. This is unquestionably the funniest new show this year.

Blogging while sick

When I started feeling a little feverish on Sunday night, I thought I might have been coming down with the flu. As Monday progressed, the fever subsided and I was left with a sore throat and runny nose--symptoms of a cold, not the flu. I woke up this morning soaked in sweat, which is always a pleasant way to start a day, but I am now starting to feel a little better. Chances are I will end up going back to work tomorrow morning--sucks!--but at least it is now a very short work week.

I have spent most of these last two sick days catching up on TV, but I'm now in a position where I can't watch any more TV without feeling like the biggest sack of useless couch-potato shit on the planet. Does that make sense?

So, I decided to do some blogging to take a break from TV. Like I wrote in this post, blogging about random shit somehow makes me feel productive. One of these days I'll sit down and finally crank out that "About Me - Homebrewer" post, but for now, I just have a few small topics to talk about.

Why so pessimistic?

This past weekend was an interesting one. My ex-wife was back in town to attend our last function as a couple: our friends' wedding. Normally a wedding like this would have been an opportunity to get wasted drunk, but I was already by this point feeling the sickness coming on, and so I ended up volunteering to be designated driver instead. Anyway, I digress, as none of that has anything to do with what I want to blog about here.

Over the course of the weekend, we had numerous interesting, difficult, challenging, revealing, and frustrating conversations--as you might expect. One of the topics that came up was how completely pessimistic I had become in the last couple of months.

In general, I have never considered myself to be an overly optimistic person. I don't think many people that know me would describe me as optimistic, either. It can vary from situation to situation (for example, on the topic of work, I have always been pessimistic), but I'm usually somewhere in the middle. What do you call that? Realistic?

Although there is a lot of startlingly honest material on this blog, I am always slightly filtering myself. I'm never lying, just maybe not always saying everything. There are people that read this blog that don't need to know everything. This is also a public forum. Hell, someone I am trying to get to know through online dating could easily stumble across this blog with a quick Google search; I'd like to think that wouldn't sabotage things, but who knows?

According to my ex-wife, this blog has, to date, presented a more upbeat and optimistic picture of how I am doing than I am actually doing. As I told her this weekend, I pretty much hate myself right now. I hate how not having someone by my side has made me feel so empty. I hate how my confidence in myself has been shattered and how I have no apparent tools to rebuild it. I hate that I can't concentrate on anything. I hate how worried I am that I may never meet another special someone. I hate how worried I am about turning into a certain boss that I may or may not work for. I hate how much of a whiny bitch I am being. I hate how much I hate myself right now.

With such positive energy running through me--yes, sarcasm!--is it any wonder that I am pessimistic about my future? Who would want to spend time with someone that is so down on themselves?

Now, having said all that, I am feeling strangely optimistic right now...

With a wink or a smile or a dumb email

One week ago yesterday, I posted my online dating profiles on Lavalife and Match.com. It was a hell of a boost to my ego when I received my first "wink" on Match.com on the second day. As I explained last week, "winks" (on Match.com) and "smiles" (on Lavalife) (and "eye contacts" on Cupid.com) are a free way to show interest in someone based on their profile.

I certainly hadn't planned on purchasing a membership this early on in the process, but the woman who had winked at me seemed like a nice enough person to be worthy of me spending $20 (actually $60 for 3 months, so ouch!) to initiate a conversation. We have now sent a few emails over the course of the last week, and it seems like we will soon be getting together to meet in person, which is always completely nerve-wracking. I don't really see us as perfect matches for each other, but I'm open-minded for sure. I'm also not sitting back and assuming this first contact will be the one.

On Thursday, I got my first "smile" on Lavalife. Unfortunately, the person who smiled at me has a completely terrible profile, and I have not been able to bring myself to email her.

On Sunday, I added my profile to Cupid.com. As I mentioned last week, there is a surprising lack of overlap between the different sites, and there are actually a couple of very interesting people on Cupid.com.

So, this morning, bored and sick, I moved to stage two of this online dating process. As a reminder, stage one was sitting back and waiting for others to show interest in me first. I'm tired of waiting; it is time to be pro-active. In stage two, I purchased 3-month memberships from both Lavalife and Cupid.com (yep, another $100 gone!), and I cold-emailed some women that had interesting profiles.

This is a grand total of two women per site so far, so I'm not settling for just anyone with a pretty face--although that doesn't hurt. It actually frustrates me when someone has an interesting profile but no picture. It's nice to know when emailing someone new that you are in fact attracted to them. Only one of the women I emailed today had no picture.

And now I'm back to waiting. And this waiting is more awkward than the stage one waiting, because there is the definite possibility of rejection now. And rejection in the online dating world typically comes in the form of complete silence.

Despite the pessimistic worry about rejection, I am definitely feeling more optimistic now about everything. Why? Because I am actually working really hard to put myself out there. And I have already succeeded in befriending at least one new person, which is nothing to scoff at, even if it just leads to one date and out. If none of the women I emailed today reply back, that will definitely hurt, but there are always others out there.

Now, there's that positive attitude I have been missing!

Week in Review, Sept 24 to 30

As I mentioned I might do last week, I'm expanding Week in Review this week to include music as well as television.

The Week in Music

Pearl Jam's "Backspacer" actually came out last week, and Porcupine Tree's "The Incident" came out on the 15th, but I didn't listen to them until this week, so... whatever, I'm reviewing them now. The music section of Week in Review is not going to be as date restrictive as the TV section.

Anyway, wow! Pearl Jam has been off my radar for a long time. I pretty much hated "Binaural" (2000) and "Riot Act" (2002). "Pearl Jam" (2006) was better, but my love for Pearl Jam the band was long gone. And now, suddenly and unexpectedly, it's back. I have been listening to "Backspacer" on repeat for the last few days and I am loving it. "Amongst the Waves," "Just Breathe," "Force of Nature," and "The End" are my favourite tracks, but this is an album that just needs to be listened to from start to finish over and over.

Porcupine Tree's "The Incident" is an interesting concept album. I don't think I've listened to it enough times to evaluate it completely, because there are a lot of layers here. It is definitely excellent, but I don't know if it is as good as "In Absentia" (2002) or "Fear of a Blank Planet" (2007). This will be a good album to listen to in the car on a long drive. And you can't really pick a favourite track on an album like this; I guess the eleven minute "Time Flies" is the centerpiece and an obvious standout. I look forward to hearing this album in 5.1 surround sound when the inevitable DVD-Audio is released.

This week's big release is the super disappointing "Black Gives Way to Blue" by the new incarnation of Alice in Chains. I have been following and really enjoying Jerry Cantrell's solo work since Alice in Chains disbanded, so I expected good things from the new Alice in Chains album. But Jerry Cantrell obviously used up his good songs on "Degradation Trip" (2002). New vocalist William DuVall is no Layne Staley, to say the least. Jerry Cantrell actually handles the majority of the vocals on the album, which in itself is fine, because like I said, his solo work is excellent. The main problem with the album is that the songs just aren't that great. The band plays them well, sure, and it still sounds like Alice in Chains, yes, but this is definitely lesser Alice in Chains. The best track is probably "Private Hell," but I haven't listened to the album enough to really get invested in any songs. The other two albums in this Week in Review are too good for me to spend much time with "Black Gives Way to Blue."

The Week in Television

Yes, I watch a lot of TV. I try to catch as much as I can live in HD, but obviously there are some nights where this is impossible (Thursday and Sunday). I don't actually have a PVR, which is pretty crazy in this day and age, because I bought my HD box many years ago and don't feel the need to upgrade it. My second option is to download the 720p mkv rips that are available for some shows. And then if I have to I will resort to the lower quality 480p avi rips.

This week's TV reviews will be slightly different from last week. Last week I took time to write a paragraph for every show I watched, but this week I am only going to write a paragraph if I have something interesting to say about a specific episode. Otherwise, I'm going to review most shows with a single word or sentence.

First, because I missed it last week and said I'd review it this week, what did I think of House's "Broken?" I have to say I was impressed by how they basically created a self-contained movie in the House universe with none of the other House characters. It was an enjoyable hour and a half, with a lot of good acting from everyone, but it was not necessarily believable in the way the plot points were resolved. And the fact that House's actual mental breakdown from the previous season's cliffhanger was resolved during the opening credits with a detox montage was quite weak. All it took was detox? Okay.

Thursday, September 24th
Interesting start, but already getting boring; not enough here to keep me watching: Flash Forward (1x1)
Very X-Files!--but I expect more: Fringe (2x2)
WTF?--I'll survive if I skip this show from now on: Community (1x2)
A little forced and unfunny this week: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (5x2)
Back to season one quality, which is not a good thing; strike one!: Parks and Recreation (2x2)
More of the same; fun character, lame stories: The Mentalist (2x1)
Didn't love it, but the highlight of an unusually poor Thursday: The Office (6x2)

Flash Forward is a show with a cool premise and not much else. The sequences depicting what would happen to the world if every person on earth blacked out for two minutes (many while driving, or flying--think about it!) were easily the highlight of an otherwise pretty bland pilot episode. I will be skipping the rest of this show, unless I start hearing raves about it later in the season.

Community's second episode, "Spanish 101," killed my interest in the series. The Chevy Chase character, one of the most interesting from the pilot, was taken to absurd extremes here. A long and completely surreal episode-ending montage left me confused about what this series is trying to be. And the biggest crime: it just wasn't funny. My Thursday watch-list is getting shorter and shorter--which is definitely a good thing!

Friday, September 25th
In Joss I trust: Dollhouse (2x1)

Dollhouse's second season premiere, "Vows," was one of the most interesting--and confusing--episodes to date. I loved it! This will almost certainly be the last season of the show, and I look forward to the ride that Joss Whedon has planned for us.

Saturday, September 26th

There's something missing here! Fuck, CTV didn't air Defying Gravity this week! Apparently the next episode is airing on Space on October 2nd. That will be shitty non-HD quality, so I may just wait for the Blu-ray release of the series.

Sunday, September 27th
Good start to a reliably entertaining reality show: The Amazing Race (15x1)
Weaker than the pilot, but still my favourite new show: Bored to Death (1x2)
Hilarious return to form: Curb Your Enthusiasm (7x2)
Looks like it is going to be an excellent new season: Dexter (4x1)
Better than last week, but still way too much filler: Entourage (6x11)
Typical random, sometimes funny, sometimes not, nonsense: The Family Guy (8x1)

Curb Your Enthusiasm's "Vehicular Fellatio" was the funniest thing I saw all week. From the opening gag with the vacuum-sealed packaging to the hilarious payoff in the end, this episode was Larry David firing on all cylinders.

Dexter's fourth season premiere, "Living the Dream," sets up the pieces for what is sure to be an interesting storyline. I could do without all the Dexter and the baby action, but that is insignificant next to all the good things in this episode. The writers have also not forgotten the stories that were left hanging from the third season, which is nice.

Monday, September 28th
A small, clumsy step in the right direction: Heroes (4x3)
Some good, funny stuff, but not my favourite episode: The Big Bang Theory (3x2)

Heroes' "Ink" was an obvious filler episode, slowly moving pieces around, but it seems like the writers might have some interesting ideas in play this season with the newest characters. Claire's storyline is still extremely iffy, but the Matt/Sylar (or "Sylon"--bravo to TWOP for that one!) storyline has improved. As this is most likely Heroes' last season (due to awful ratings), I will hang in until the end of this very bumpy ride.

In Summary

Okay, so another long week of TV down, many, many, many more to go...

There are a number of shows that I haven't yet watched from this past week, generally because I had more of a life this week--which is obviously a good thing!--and these shows are on the bottom of my list: Merlin (2x2), American Dad (5x1), The Simpsons (12x1), House (6x2), and Modern Family (1x2). If I have anything to say about these shows, it will be in next week's review.

If I didn't enjoy watching this much TV, I wouldn't do it, but at the same time I wish there were less good shows to watch. As if all these shows weren't enough, I'm also catching up on some older series in my spare time (Breaking Bad, The Flight of the Conchords, Mad Men, True Blood). I'll probably have more to say about these older series in future reviews.