nuxx.net – Page 127 – Making, baking, and (un-)breaking things in Southeast Michigan.

Southern Tier’s Krampus

Published November 27, 2008

Souther Tier's Crampus poured into a glass. This is a nicely hoppy, slightly roasted tasting 9% lager.

Here, have a photo of the beer I just started sipping, Southern Tier Brewing Company‘s Krampus, which is one of their Seasonal Imperial beers. It’s a very nicely hoppy 9% beer with a very slightly roasted taste to it. I also think it smells a bit like grapefruit.

Here’s some text from the back of the bottle and the relevant Wikipedia article:

St. Nicholas, aka Santa Claus, is a magical figure, the bringer of gifts and an icon of holiday spirit. Forgotten by most is his evil side kick and enforcer of ‘the list’.

European tradition says while St. Nick is busy delivering presents to good little boys and girls, Krampus hands out punishments to the bad. A fanged, goat-horned bully, the Christmas Devil uses sticks and chains to beat the naughty children.

Dark malts and aromatic hops create the diabolical spirit of this brew. It is finished with lager yeast and aged cold for no less than 30 days. This Imperial Helles Lager will warm even the darkest hearts.

This season, replace the cookies with a bottle of Krampus. If he happens to pay a visit, toast to him with this devilish brew. Merry Kramp-mas to all, and to all a good pint!

Alc. 9.0% by Vol.
20° Plato
2-row Pale Malt
Debittered Black Malt
Munich Malt
Caramel Malt
Kettle Hops: Chinook
Dry Hops: Willamette

Store In A Cool Place
Serve In A Snifter [Whoops!]
Best at 48°F (8.9°C)

Now I think it’s time to go watch King Corn via the Netflix / Xbox 360 streaming stuffs.

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Laphroaig Quarter Cask

Published November 25, 2008

Save for an awful cold, an Oyster Card, some cash, a few receipts, and two packs of ~~candy~~ chocolate bars, this 1L bottle of Laphroaig Quarter Cask purchased at a Duty Free shop at Heathrow Airport was the only real souvenir which I brought back from the UK. Cost was £30.99, and with the ~1.58:1 exchange rate we received, the state minimum price of $54.98 for a 750mL, and a 6% sales tax, presuming the same size bottle was available, this cost 63% of what it would back here in Michigan.

This is a very interesting whisky. Despite its higher alcohol content it’s not as potent of a flavor as I expected. It’s still nicely smoky, but there’s something much softer about it. I did mix it with about 40% water, and I may eventually work up to trying it neat, but that’s typically a stretch for Laphroaig. It’s almost always best with at least a small splash of water.

I guess I should go fill out the form to claim my square foot of land on Islay. Maybe one day I’ll end up there and have a chance to collect rent.

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Cool Weather Riding

Published November 25, 2008

New SIDI Bullet 2 shoes with my old(er) SM-SH51 cleats after a first ride. They work well.

I finally put the cleats on my new Sidi Bullet 2 shoes, covered them with Pearl Izumi AmFIB Moutain Shoe Covers, and went for a bike ride. Beyond the new shoes and covers I also wore the gloves I purchased last month, BDU pants, my old blue North Face jacket from my Alaska adventure in 1996, and a Descente Coldout Beanie under my helmet. I did not feel cold, nor did my toes get numb. This is good.

The ride was 13.5 miles, and in just over an hour I went from my house, up to River Bends park, through the 5km hiking trail, out of the park, down to 21 Mile, back past Schoenherr, through a subdivision, then back to my house. At one point while riding someone in a car yelled something at me, but I’m not really sure what it was. It may have been “Ghostrider!”, but I couldn’t really tell. Weirdly, I caught up with them at the next light (about a mile away) and ended up passing them as I crossed.

My head and tail light both worked great for the whole ride, but it was a bit spooky riding along in the woods alone, knowing that it was unlikely that anyone else would be out there any time soon. At one point I turned the light off just to see how difficult it was to ride, but the only markings I had to follow were the dim blue/grey slush and snow on the path. I quickly turned the light back on. That said, there was something really pleasing about riding along seeing small snowflakes fluttering down and streaking past me, and in the woods I saw at least one set of eyes looking back at me in the brush.

I think I’m set for cool weather (~32°F/0°C) riding.

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NXE Xbox LIVE with pf and miniupnpd on OpenBSD 4.2

Published November 24, 2008

New Xbox Experience (NXE) showing a successful Xbox Live test via NAT and UPnP on OpenBSD 4.3 with pf and miniupnpd.

(UPDATE: This issue has been worked around / resolved. Please see Xbox Live Open NAT Using pf on OpenBSD.)

I rather enjoy turn-based artillery games like Worms, Scorched Earth (and Scorch 2000 and Scorched 3D), and GORILLA.BAS, so when I found out that Worms for Xbox Live Arcade was available, I purchased it.

A few months ago, before Microsoft released NXE, or the New Xbox Experience, I had no problems playing Worms online when using my Trashwall set up with the Microsoft proscribed forwards of 88/udp, 3074/udp, and 3074/tcp. However, after NXE was released it seemed to stop working. The Xbox LIVE test would consistently tell me that I have “Strict” NAT settings and that some things won’t work. I was unable to host private or public games. Xbox LIVE supposedly works best with either a direct internet connection or a firewall which implements UPnP, so I set to implementing UPnP on my pf-based firewall.

In order to do so I compiled and set up miniupnpd per the directions, but I ran into a whole bunch of weirdness along the way. I eventually got it working, getting an occasional successful Xbox LIVE test (as seen above) which indicates “Open” NAT, and I was able to play a private game against , but things don’t seem right.

Below the cut I’ll document what I’m been seeing.

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LOL Banana

Published November 24, 2008

Today's banana came festooned with a LOL sticker. It was a very tasty, perfectly ripe banana.

The banana I ate today came with a LOL sticker on it. It was a perfectly ripe banana which made for a good noon time, starting to feel better meal-ish thing. Now to decide on the rest of the day’s food. I think a nice Thai or Indian curry will jump start my digestive system.

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Winter Is On Its Way

Published November 24, 2008

Snow falling on my last day of vacation, 24-Nov-2008. Winter is definitely coming.

Winter is definitely on its way. I guess this is a good day for it, though, as Danielle and I are both stuck here at my house sick with something sort of flu-like. It’s my last day of vacation, but she was supposed to be at work today.

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~300 Miles

Published November 23, 2008

Danielle standing outside of her car after we filled it with fuel. A failing gas gauge caused her to run out.

Last night at 1am Danielle was reminded that her gas gauge occasionally fails to indicate the amount of fuel remaining in the tank. Whoops. It’s a good thing she had a gas can and was able to make it into a church parking lot in a reasonably decent area.

Here’s another photo which doesn’t show quite what I’d hoped. That is, it was supposed to show the pile of leaves and tumbleweed collected outside of my garage door, but instead it just illustrates the shadow of my bike at night. Ah well, I guess I can’t expect the CCD in it to be that great.

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The Sounds Of American Doomsday Cults, vol. 14

Published November 22, 2008

Can any of you help me locate a digital copy of the album The Sounds Of American Doomsday Cults, vol. 14?

I’d heard samples from this a few times before, but when listening to Rough Trade Shops: Counter Culture 06 (disc 2 track 13) I was finally able to put an album with the sample. Searching around revealed this site with a broken RapidShare link, but no other traces of where to find a copy. Would any of you happen to know where I could get one?

Thanks!

UPDATE: I’ve found a few places to buy the CD from, so it looks like it’s available, it’ll just take a while to get.

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Office Rearranging

Published November 20, 2008

(November 2008) ...after rearranging things so that a chair and desk for Danielle could fit in my office. The rack was moved and recabled and unneeded things removed.

After acquiring a table and chair for Danielle I had positioned it right in the middle of my office, which was quite in the way. Having some time off, wanting to stay around the house due to feeling sick, and having completed today’s main goal I decided to rearrange my office and fit the table in.

I ended up removing everything from the rack, rotating it against the wall, putting the table between it and the CD rack, then completely re-cabling the rack with only the needed items in place. The vertical wooden shelves were moved next to the door where I previously had a theremin. Everything fits great and I’m really happy with this arrangement.

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Rust-Oleum Frosted Glass Spray Paint

Published November 20, 2008

Since I bought this place I’ve had cellular blinds in the bathroom off of my bedroom, but over the years they’ve become dirty and I found that I never opened them, so there was little point in actually having blinds there. With some time off I decided to frost the window instead, eventually settling on using Rust-Oleum Frosted Glass spray paint purchased at Home Depot for $4.39.

I first removed both panes of the windows (they are double hung Wallside Windows-brand and thus easy to remote) and cleaned them up with glass cleaner, 99% isopropyl alcohol, a toothbrush, and some clean rags. I then masked the edges with 3M Scotch-Blue™ Painter’s Tape, then masked everything else off with more tape and newsprint.

Due to the cold weather painting was done in the basement, and I had to be certain to ventilate the house afterwards because the fumes were making me feel a bit funny. Normally I’d paint in the garage, but with the weather hanging around freezing that wasn’t possible.

Painting itself went well with the paint having a 10-15 minute dry time, after which it could be recoated immediately. I did a total of three coats with each applied in left/right, up/down, diagonal crosshatch patterns to try and get as consistent of a coating as possible. Upon application the paint appears wet, but it dries to a nicely hazy, translucent finish.

Twenty minutes or so after the last coat I removed the masking and blew the dust off of the finish. There were some odd white particles of paint left on the surface, but a gentle wipe with a terry cloth rag dislodged them and left a much more consistent surface. With a total cost of around $5 (taking masking costs into account) this seems to have been a nicely effective replacement for the blinds. Total job time was just over two hours, including removing the windows, painting, waiting, and replacing the windows. The paint did what it claimed to do, which is exactly what I was wanting.

Here’s the photos I took while doing this project to document this project and how it came out:

· Masked window set up to paint, next to a can of Rust-Oleum Frosted Glass spray paint.
· Two window panes after receiving their first coat of Rust-Oleum Frosted Glass paint.
· Powdery overspray on the garbage bags and basement floor. Yes, I was dumb and painted indoors, but it was the only option due to the weather.
· Detail of the surface of the glass immediately after painting. Note the white powdery pieces.
· Detail of the surface of the glass again with the white powdery pieces.
· After gently wiping the surface of the glass down with a dry terry cloth rag, most of the white particles were removed.
· This portion of the window lock was removed so that painting behind it wasn’t a problem.
· Window lock reinstalled and detail of the texture on the surface of the glass.
· Window from the outside after painting the inside with Rust-Oleum Frosted Glass spray paint. Note the bottle of window cleaner to demonstrate how the light is diffused.
· Window from inside after painting with Rust-Oleum Frosted Glass spray paint showing the location of the glass cleaner bottle demonstrated in the previous image. This should work well.

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