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Click the pic for the full set

As the weather turns brisk, I figured it was time to start experimenting in the vodka lab again. Besides a couple of tried and true cinnamon vodkas, I am going to try some “unconventional” flavors.

First up, Spiced Cider Vodka. The good folks over at Infusions of Grandeur have already done the hard work on this one. It will definitely be my most involved creation, using 5 different flavors (apple, orange, cinnamon, clove, and nutmeg), all added at set times. I followed their recipes before, so I am sure it will all work out.

The other one…. well, here’s where we might guinea pig a few iterations. Reading this blog entry, inspired me to make Pumpkin Pie Vodka. Not just pumpkin, but pumpkin pie, with all the spices. The ratios given are far from exact, so I think I will start with a whole can, and back down from there on future batches if necessary. If anything this should be easy. Besides, my friends are all drunks, so even the bad batches usually get consumed. (OTOH, the Habañero vodka is slowly eating through the bottle on the top shelf)

Hopefully I can fine tune these and have some good gifts for this season’s holiday parties.

tags: cider, infusion, pumpkin pie, vodka

West Coast Kaiju Big Battel throwdown in full effect!

What is Kaiju Big Battel, you ask?

Kaiju Big Battel is a modern conflict of epic proportions. Scattered throughout the galaxy is a monstrous mob of Kaiju - maniacal villains, ominous alien beasts, and gigantic, city-crushing monsters who are fighting for control of the globe, their volatile tempers periodically detonating into bouts of intergalactic sparring and senseless acts of violence.

Basically, its GWAR, if they were Japanese, atomic, and didnt play instruments.
(for more info check out this or for the vanilla wiki version, look here)

Heading down to Los Angeles Thursday November 20th through Saturday the 22nd with some SpiceAliens to check out the carnage at the Mayan Theater.

tags: big battel, kaiju, Los Angeles

A few weeks ago I celebrated(?) my 40th birthday. One of the best gifts I got was from my friend April. She went and rounded up 40 different beers. The great thing was that they weren’t local beers. Living in Portland, one gets kind of spoiled with the number of microbrews available at our local watering holes. April managed to round up beers from far flung locales such as Tahiti, India, Singapore, and the near mythical dark empire of Germany.

While a review of each beer would be unwieldy, most of the beers were quite good (or at least not heinous). Two stinkers do have to get called out. The Bard’s Tale sorghum beer was ass. I appreciate that there are people with gluten issues that may like this stuff. But let’s face it, its not beer. In that vein, the non-alcoholic Warsteiner stuck out like a sore thumb.

For those interested, here is the complete list:

• Abita Purple Haze
• Ayinger Oktober Fest Märzinger
• Bard’s Tale Dragon’s Gold
• Bison IPA
• Butte Creek Organic IPA
• Carlsberg Elephant
• Dick’s Dick Danger Ale
• Dick’s Lava Rock Porter
• Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA
• Duvel Belgian Golden Ale
• Grand Teton Bitch Creek
• Great Divide Titan IPA
• Grieskirchner Jörger Weisse
• Hale’s Ales Kölsch
• Harp Lager
• HeBrew Messiah Bold
• Hinano Tahiti
• James Boag’s Premium Lager
• Kingfisher Premium Lager
• Lagunitas Sirius
• Lakefront IPA
• Laughing Dog IPA
• Lost Coast 8-Ball Stout
• Lost Coast Downtown Brown
• Nectar IPA
• New Belgium Mothership Wit
• Newcastle Brown Ale
• North Coast PranQster Belgian Style Golden Ale
• North Coast Scrimshaw Pilsner
• Paulaner Oktoberfest-Märzen
• Speakeasy Double Daddy IPA
• Speakeasy Prohibition Ale
• Tiger Lager
• Victory Hopdevil
• Victory Prima Pils
• Warsteiner Premium Fresh
• Weed Golden Ale
• Weed Mountain High IPA
• Weihenstephaner Festbier
• Xingu Black Beer

tags: Ale, April

xposted from mailing lists and other blog posts:

It’s Not the Most Important Match Ever….

…it’s bigger than that.

The final USL match between the Portland Timbers and the Scum from Seattle.

And it’s Thirsday Thursday.

And a late start.

And it’s on Fox Soccer Channel.

We shall bring the noise and the pain and make them simper back to their moldy, fish-stank home.

The match will be preceded by a funeral parade. (Yes, we have an actual human-sized coffin.)

Be at the Bitter End at 6pm or at the Bullpen about an hour later.

Bagpipes; pallbearers; trumpets; booze.

Some of my friends are actually participating and will be attempting to launch a rollerderby roller skate into the drink.  Check out their site here and the main flugtag site here. If the weather holds up, it should be a great time on the waterfront followed by the Bones and Brew festival.

(edit)

From TeqKillYa:  If you cannot make it to watch on Saturday, simply text “Team 29” to 72855 from 11 AM- 3 PM PST on Saturday! Help us with Crowd Favorite. We need about 10,000 votes to win!

Lots of stuff coming up in the next week or three. I can’t say that I am going to hit up all of these events, but they are definitely poking at my little brain.

Thursday (7/24) - Portland Timbers home game vs. Carolina RailHawks.

Friday (7/25) Either group outing to the Drive-In or DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist at Roseland (probably drive in - havent been to one in forever!)

Saturday (7/26) Girl Talk at Roseland. This show should be super fun. The Feed The Animals album is great. Listening to Girl Talk Murders Seattle - Live at Chop Suey gives me great hope for this show. (psst - follow the Feed The Animals link and you can download it for free/name your own price).

Sunday (7/27) Chromeo at Berbati’s Pan. May be too tuckered out for this show, considering I just saw them at Coachella.

Saturday and Sunday (7/26/727) Oregeon Brewer’s Fest at the Waterfront

Monday (7/28) Weekly bar trivia at Chez Jose (eastside). Will Sparklemotion return to dominance, or is this the week apathy totally kills us off.

Thursday (7/31) Last Thursday in NE.

Saturday (8/2) Red Bull Flugtag at Waterfront Park.

Saturday and Sunday (8/2/83) Bones and Brew in the Pearl

Sunday (8/10) Providence Bridge Pedal. Our crew has decided to do the 8 bridge/24 mile route. Unless someone signed us up for the 11 bridge/37 mile route. Better step up my daily rides.

(errata: wrote this using MarsEdit to see if I like blogging from a desktop client as opposed to just using the web)

edit: added beerfest and bbq

IBF is in full effect. hung out with nebu for a minute. where are u?

wow

a great band with a great group of people to enjoy them with.

i think we lose sight of that sometimes. the people i saw this show with were not just  bodies taking up space. they were people I love spending time with. the fact that half of them had no idea of the magnitude of the awesome that was about to be poured down their  gullet really had no effect.

so… this wont be the standard concert review. of course i loved jamc. what can i say that makes that more evocative. what i can talk about is the fact that:

• brett’s band sounded better than i have ever heard them before
• they were named after the headliner!
• rest of bulleted list edited / deleted for propriety

After my initial plans for this show fell through, I was almost ready to let my hard earned floor tickets to this show go to waste. Fortunately, new plans were made and I managed to get to the show around 9:15 - two hours after the start. There were two openers, so I figured that it might still be worth seeing.

Got there just as Foo Fighters went on. After a quick beer in the beer garden, we headed down to the floor.

First impression was: wow, there are a lot of people here. I don’t think it was a sell out, but the Rose Garden’s bowl was fairly full (and I do know that the floor tix were sold out). The sound was great - loud and full without being overpowering.

After a few songs, Taylor went into a drum solo, which was our cue to hit the bathrooms and the bar. Five minutes later and we got a nice surprise.

The bar setup on the floor of the Rose Garden is at the back of the arena. I’m not the kind of person who tries to wrangle their way to the front of the crowd, so this was fine by me. When we came back on to the floor, though - wow.

The whole band had moved to a small auxilliary stage at the back of the floor. We basically walked in and were in the third row! The songs they did there were a bit more mellow, more intimate. Then Dave introduced the band. It was at this moment, that he really connected with the audience. He has mastered the art of being the snarky front man of a huge rock band, all with a wink and a nod. After a handful of songs on the back stage, Dave went into an “acoustic” version of Everlong while the rest of the band disappeared. As they reassembled on the main stage, they transitioned into a full version of the song, and completely left the back stage.

The rest of the show was solid. Then they left and the inevitable wait for the encore began. And once again, they did something different. Someone was backstage with an IR camera filming the band rehydrating and taking a break. Through gestures, Dave intimated that he heard the crowd and basically said “ok, one more song”. After a minute or so of this, they move over to Taylor, who started upping the ante, going from one song to four, all playing off the crowd energy.

As they came back on stage, Dave talked to the crowd for awhile, reminiscing over the fact that their first ever live show was here in Portland (at the Satyricon). A couple of solid encore songs and the show was over. A good two + hour performance.

(update a few janky camphone pics)