Ok, it still boggles my mind that CBS actually covered this during daylight hours. For those who didn't catch it and are interested, here's the link for the segment that I uploaded to Google Video.

WoW Arena at WSVG2007

Yesterday I had DISHnetwork installed at the house, and I think I was close to making the installer's head explode. He had a hard time understanding why I ordered a 4 room setup and put them all in the same room. Let's see if I can explain it well enough - there are two receivers (R1 and R2), each with two tuners (T1 and T2). R1T1 and R2T1 both use an infrared remote, which I can emulate through an infrared transmitter. That makes it ideal for controlling with my MythTV box. R1T2 and R2T2 both use UHF remotes, which I don't have a way to emulate - I'm sure it's possible, just not economical. However, my wife still wanted the ability to change channels and watch TV in other rooms that don't have MythTV front ends on them - namely the kitchen and bedroom. R1T2 sends its signal out on Channel 73, and R2T2 sends its signal out on Channel 80, and they appear to not interfere with each other. I fed the output of R1T2 back into my house cabling setup, reversed the splitters (so that what used to be an OUT is now an IN), and I have the ability to walk around the house with the UHF remote and change the channels on the "dumb tv sets". I'm not using both T2's yet because the tech support people at DISHnetwork said that I can still use infrared on the T2's, so I may get another PVR-150 to add into my MythTV box and then have 3 independent inputs from satellite.

Name : Brewer's Best English Pale Ale
Boil Time : 60 minutes
Variation : Used White Labs WLP002 yeast instead of the included dry yeast.

Brewing Date : July 15, 2007
Secondary Fermentation Date : July 23, 2007
Starting Gravity : 1.032 (Lower than it should be)
Final Gravity : 1.010
Alcohol By Volume : Approx. 2.8%, or 6 Proof
Kegging Date : July 26, 2007
First Draw : August 3, 2007

Notes :
Prepared the recipe according to instructions, only that I don't have a floating thermometer (yet) and had to keep using a probe thermometer. Unfortunately for the wort cooling process that thermometer doesn't register below 140 F, so I had to guesstimate on when it was cool enough to pitch yeast. I placed the fermenting bucket in the closet and didn't realize that the AC register was still open, so when I checked on it at day 2 the bucket was pretty chilly. I closed off the register and gave the bucket a swirl to stir up the yeast and hopefully kick start the fermentation again.

When transferring to secondary fermentation I was glad to see that the bulk of the yeast sediment was on top, which it should be for an ale. The beer has a good smell to it and if anything the secondary fermentation helped get rid of a lot of the sediment - mainly the pile of hops laying at the bottom of the bucket.

I finished up the partial keg of Pale Ale last night and the flavor has definitely improved over the first draw from it. I'll have a couple out of the other keg tonight so that I can try to finish it up by bottling time on Friday. I can already tell that I need to get more mini kegs so that I can have more than one batch in them at a time. Now that I sold the Sea Doo, I've got a little more flexibility with my spending money, since I won't be putting $50/month onto the credit card bill.

Since I still have some pale ale in one keg I decided to get some bottles. It will also help with sharing, since I'm not going to share my keg and tap-a-draft system with others. Bottling was fairly easy after the first two - the first two I was pressing down on the valve too far and it wasn't shutting off when I wanted to.

I couldn't wait - opened up one of the bottles on Friday night, Aug 3. Wow, it came out really well. The flavor reminds me a lot of a darker brown ale, rather than a lighter one - something akin to a cross between a Rogue Nut Brown Ale and a Flying Dog Road Dog. There was very little sediment, too, which I hope is due to the secondary fermentation. The next batch I'll have a better grasp on how to take the hydrometer readings, so we'll see if I was way off on the cooking, or on the reading, next time.

Name : Mr. Beer American Pale Ale (included in Mr. Beer package)
Boil Time : Mr. Beer is a "no boil" kit
Variations : Instead of tap water, I used spring water. Instead of table sugar, I used corn sugar. Instead of plastic bottles, I used 5L mini kegs.

Brew Date : July 3, 2007
Bottle Date : July 10, 2007
First Draw : July 17, 2007

Notes :
I started with the less full of the two kegs - maybe 3.5 liters worth of beer in there. I'm using a tap-a-draft system for delivery. The first pint was definitely flat, with a bit extra sweetness to it. Of course, there was too much sugar in this keg since there was only about 3.5 liters of beer. The subsequent pints weren't as cloudy as the first, and the CO2 from the tap-a-draft may have taken away some of the flatness. It tastes like a pale ale, which I'm not the biggest fan of, but I doubt it has much alcohol content at all. Not bad for a first try.

Ok, swapped out from keg #1 to keg #2. Even though keg #2 was allowed to carbonate for an extra week, it was just as flat. The problem is that I used the original plastic bung that came with it, rather than the heavy duty rubber bung that came with the tap-a-draft system. The plastic bung didn't create a tight seal so that the CO2 would pressurize inside the beer. Oh, well, it's a learning process. After a couple of days with the CO2 cartridges it will be well carbonated. Right now it's just too flat to drink.

I passed my Tang Soo Do test for 3rd Gup (red belt)!

Now to go take a nap. They wore me out!

So I haven't even finished my first batch of home brew yet - it's still in the fermenting process - and I'm already buying more equipment for home brewing. Yes, I realize that this is a "sparkly shiny" for me, but I'm not quite ADD. I just really like beer, and I enjoy cooking, so to me this is a rewarding hobby to get into.

Anyway, the idea of using bottles for my home brew just didn't sit well with me. Sure, bottles are fine for what you give away to relatives and the neighbors, but for home, you need a KEG! Also knowing that there's no way I can fit a full keg in my little fridge upstairs, I found a kit with 5 liter kegs and the tap system. Then I noticed that they had 10% off this month. Bonus! Here's my new setup:

Brew King Tap System

It's a "Brew King".

Only one more day until I test for my red belt (3rd Gup)... last night in class I asked if we could do practice breaks because it had been 17 years since I'd broken a board without it being part of a demolition/construction project. The instructors polled the class and there certainly was interest from others, so we set up for some breaks. I don't know why I was anxious about this part of my testing, because they had me go ahead and do 5 breaks - skip side kick (yi dan yup cha gi), roundhouse kick (dull ryo cha gi), backfist (kap kwan), reverse knife hand (yuk soo do) and jumping front kick (ya dan ahp cha gi). It was quite satisfying to break through without a problem, so now I just have to finalize what one-step methods (il soo sik) I plan on doing during the testing. If it was straight up one steps, that would be simple, because I am comfortable with more than the 5 required, but they will also do three punch one steps, and my footwork isn't quite what it needs to be on all of them to set myself up for the finishing moves. Oh, well. Maybe ware will show up to the 2600 Meeting tonight and I can beat up on him.

Tuesday my Mr. Beer Home Brewing Kit came in the mail, so obviously I had to go ahead and brew my first ever batch of beer on Tuesday night. While waiting for it to arrive, though, I read and watched as much as I could - from online how-to resources to the Good Eats episode "Amber Waves", where Alton Brown goes through the beer making process.

I have to say, without even having tasted my batch yet, that Mr. Beer is the Hamburger Helper of the beer world. That's not to say that the beer tastes bad - I'll be the first to admit that I've eaten many a helping of box food in my day. But come on, admit it, when you invite a lady over and tell her that you're going to cook, you never fix Hamburger Helper. Why? Because there's no creativity in the process. If you add more water or milk than the box tells you to, it's not going to change the outcome, it'll just make you boil it longer. That's what the Mr. Beer kit is like. Rather than have you make the wort on your own, they send you a can of viscous caramel syrup that you add to water and then boil just long enough to make it dissolve, then you go straight to the fermentation stage. The bright side of it is that pretty much anybody could use the kit to brew beer. However, I just don't see much room for creativity here. I'll probably buy a few different recipes to try out, and then put a pro-am brew kit on my birthday list so that I can gain the satisfaction from truly making my own beer from scratch.

Triumph the Comic Insult Dog covered the Tony Awards this past Sunday night. You know, those awards for Broadway shows that people outside of New York City haven't ever heard about. It's absolutely hilarious, and I guess technically safe for work, since it aired on the Conan O'Brien Show.

I have been trying to get Al Gore to speak at PhreakNIC for the past several years, and have had conversations with his personal assistant, but could never make it past him. He was either busy with the book tours, or political campaigning, or out of town for a board meeting (since he's a board member for Apple, Google, and others). So when I heard that he was doing a book signing for his new book, The Assault on Reason at Davis-Kidd in Green Hills, I came up with my plan.

First, I had to buy a copy of his book early enough to get a ticket to the book signing. Check. Then I had to decide what to do.

My wife thought that I should give him some schwag. I thought that sounded good at first, but then regained my principles (well, kinda). I've had some "lively discussions" with our Treasurer about what we should and shouldn't be selling as part of PhreakNIC. He wants to help build up the funds, and I can appreciate that because it's his job, but I'm resisting because PhreakNIC is not a brand, per se. It's an event, and if you come to the event you can get some schwag. We don't need to have a catalog of goods available with the ever present "Hacker Inside" logo on it. We also discussed re-issues of past items and I threw a hissy fit about never ever ever reprinting something that was a speaker/director gift. The gifts that we give out are for those who contributed in the past, and not as some trinket to try to buy favor with. Last year I had extra pocket knives made so that I could give them away to people who had been a big part of PhreakNIC in the past, even if they weren't participating that year, so that one's a grey area, but I also didn't want to be wrestled to the ground when I pulled out a knife to hand to Al.

The argument really boils down to the same reason why I won't sign the petitions to draft Al to run for President. To me, the job needs to be about someone who feels that they can be the most effective in that position. Participating in PhreakNIC needs to happen because you are passionate about a subject and want to convey it to others. We don't pay people to speak at PhreakNIC, nor do we pick up their travel expenses. Those of us who organize the convention do it through volunteering a vast amount of our time and in many cases, our money, to pull it off. It is all about a labor of love. I would absolutely put my support behind the man if he were to run for President again, but only if he truly wanted to do it. My hat goes off to him for being able to joke about the entire experience of 2000, but I truly think he's happier doing what he's doing now and that he can actually do more good as a private citizen.

So anyway, back to my diabolical plan. I decided to simply go up to the table, and tell him the following and see what he would say.

Al, I've been inviting you to speak at my technology conference for the past 4 years, but I can't ever get past Josh. Oh, hi, you must be Josh. All I ask is that when you get 5 minutes, give me a call and let me talk to you about it. Here's my card.

That's pretty much exactly how it went down, and Al did say, "sure" when I asked him for a phone call. Oh, and I had to knock some people down just to exit because they were blocking the exit. Hopefully that just showed him that our Goon Squad can reprahzent!

Oh, and I got my book signed by him. It says, "OMG You Are My Hero!" on one page in crayon, and then "Al Gore" on the next written with a Sharpie. Yes, that's his handwriting. I can't help it if he can't write consistently with a crayon...