The Weakerthans - Sun in an Empty Room:
Now that the furniture's returning to its goodwill home
With dishes and last week's paper
Rumors and elections,
Crosswords, our unending wars
The black on our fingers smeared the ink on every door pulled shut
Now that the last month's rent is scheming with the damage deposit
Take this moment to decide (sun in an empty room)
If were meant it, if we tried (sun in an empty room)
Felt around for far too much (sun in an empty room)
Things that accidentally touch (sun in an empty room)
Hands that we nearly hold with pennies for the GST
The shoulders we lean our shoulders into on the subway, mutter an apology
The shins that we kick beneath the table, that reflexive cry
The faces we meet one awkward beat too long and terrified
Know the things we need to say (sun in an empty room)
We tell already anyways (sun in an empty room)
Parallelograms of light (sun in an empty room)
Rooms that we repainted white (sun in an empty room)
Sun in an empty room
Sun in an empty room
Sun in an empty room
Sun in an empty room
Sun in an empty room
Sun in an empty room
Sun in an empty room
Sun in an empty room
Take eight minutes and divide (sun in an empty room)
By ninety million lonely miles (sun in an empty room)
Watch the shadow cross the floor (sun in an empty room)
We don't live here anymore (sun in an empty room)
--
This is the saddest song I can currently manage. My battle with depression only allows me so much melancholy at a time. But he words are meaningful and honest. I have lived this song. It was a hard time, but I am so much better for it.
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Thursday, January 10, 2013
I ride bikes. I ride bikes in every situation where riding a bike is appropriate. "Care for a lift?" you say. "Naw man," I say. "I'll get there." And then off I go.
I take things a little to far, sometimes. My friends know it, and my grandparents expect me to tell them about bikes at least once a week. If bikes were a thing that you injected into your arm, I would be broke and homeless. As it is, I am just broke.
In my pursuit of life as a bicycle fanatic, I spent much of early 20's elbows deep in grease and bearings. I became a fairly competent wheel-builders, and by my modest estimate I think I have laced and tensioned somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 wheels.
But, I am just small bananas compared to some people. And I am not saying my love isn't as true as others, it's just I am not as skilled. My hands are only so nimble, and my skills only could take me so far. I knew this going in. But it will never stop hinder my love for a well built bicycle.
Such is the case of the focus of today's post. Rob English is a god among us mere mortals, and a true artist. You can see his work at englishcycles.com. It is a true pleasure just to browse his work.
One build of his caught my eye is pictured below. It's a steel custom built frame with a very slick set of components. The ENVE wheels are so fantastic looking, and the classically styled stem is just the perfect touch. The shifting is managed by Shimano's excellent Di2 group, and the headset is, of course, a Chris King.
I take things a little to far, sometimes. My friends know it, and my grandparents expect me to tell them about bikes at least once a week. If bikes were a thing that you injected into your arm, I would be broke and homeless. As it is, I am just broke.
In my pursuit of life as a bicycle fanatic, I spent much of early 20's elbows deep in grease and bearings. I became a fairly competent wheel-builders, and by my modest estimate I think I have laced and tensioned somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 wheels.
But, I am just small bananas compared to some people. And I am not saying my love isn't as true as others, it's just I am not as skilled. My hands are only so nimble, and my skills only could take me so far. I knew this going in. But it will never stop hinder my love for a well built bicycle.
Such is the case of the focus of today's post. Rob English is a god among us mere mortals, and a true artist. You can see his work at englishcycles.com. It is a true pleasure just to browse his work.
One build of his caught my eye is pictured below. It's a steel custom built frame with a very slick set of components. The ENVE wheels are so fantastic looking, and the classically styled stem is just the perfect touch. The shifting is managed by Shimano's excellent Di2 group, and the headset is, of course, a Chris King.
Life is good. But next to this, nothing is great.
This is after the ride home.
It's dark out and the roads are slippery. It's well below 20c. My hands are cold, I can't feel my face and the wind is picking up.
But it's oh so quiet. The only sound is the snow crunching beneath my tire and my breathing as I push for a little more speed. My legs are burning, and the past few months of inactivity are making my lungs scream.
And I love it. The connection with a bike is true love. My bike is my weapon; my Katana. I am a samurai and the road is mt battlefield. But I am a conqueror.
I am a warlord.
I am unstoppable.
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
I have successfully recreated my earlier "Americano" experiment! Again, it didn't explode, and it tastes pretty damn good.
It's a standard two serving pot. The package came with a promise for an extra gasket, but the gasket was not included. So, according to my research, in the next year or so, depedning on frequency of use, I'll have to conjure a new gasket. I'm not concerned about this, just yet.
Thus far, I'm pretty pleased. All my forays into the high arts of espresso making have proven positive
My methods at this point:
1) Fill the bottom of the pot with water until just below the release valve. (I suspect a lesser amount of water and a higher amount of espresso grounds will equate to a higher strength of espresso, but less volume. I'll test ths theory in the next few days.)
2) Put the filter piece in place in the bottom of the pot. Fill the filter with grounds, but don't overfill it, and don't pack it tight. Keeping the grounds loose in the filter should allow for better water flow through the grounds, meaning for a smoother brewing process.
3) Screw the top part of the pot onto the bottom half. Be careful not to spill. Also important is to no over-tighten the two halves together. The gasket will enure a tight seal even if the threads aren't extremely tight, and over-tightening will only put undue stress on the gasket without any benefit. This added stress will shorten the life of your gasket considerably.
4) Turn the smallest element on your range to high and put your pot on it. Put the pot on the edge of the element so that the handle of the pot isn't above the element. This isn't vital, but if you plan on handling the pot without burning yourself, it will help a lot. On my pot, the handle stays cool to the tough as long as the handle is not hanging over the element.
5) As your mother always said: "a watched pot never boils." However, in this case, it's going to boil pretty quick. So, don't stray to far. Once it starts boiling, your going to hear it. It doesn't whistle, but it certainly will make a bubbling noise. Stand near by and listen, you'll hear it. 6) Once it starts boiling, it's almost done. Some people suggest removing it from the heat as soon as it starts boiling, other suggest waiting a bit. I, as yet, am undecided. My first brew, I left it on after it was boiling, but only because I wasn't sure what to do. Tonight, on my second brew, I left the pot on the element and simply turned the heat off. I let the pot sit for another minute until the sound of the boiling stopped.
7) That's it! You've brewed espresso. It really is that easy, and it would be pretty hard to screw it up. The fun part is going to be taking your espresso and adding some other ingredients and making something else. The easiest is a simple Americano, which is: 1 shot of espresso and some boiling water, enough to fill a coffee mug. Add a little cream to taste and your set. It's a nice change from coffee, and something quick to wow your friends with.
At present, I am going to focus on brewing a mean espresso. Practice will make perfect. But soon after, the world of frothed milk will fall into view.
Thus far, I'm pretty pleased. All my forays into the high arts of espresso making have proven positive
My methods at this point:
1) Fill the bottom of the pot with water until just below the release valve. (I suspect a lesser amount of water and a higher amount of espresso grounds will equate to a higher strength of espresso, but less volume. I'll test ths theory in the next few days.)
2) Put the filter piece in place in the bottom of the pot. Fill the filter with grounds, but don't overfill it, and don't pack it tight. Keeping the grounds loose in the filter should allow for better water flow through the grounds, meaning for a smoother brewing process.
3) Screw the top part of the pot onto the bottom half. Be careful not to spill. Also important is to no over-tighten the two halves together. The gasket will enure a tight seal even if the threads aren't extremely tight, and over-tightening will only put undue stress on the gasket without any benefit. This added stress will shorten the life of your gasket considerably.
4) Turn the smallest element on your range to high and put your pot on it. Put the pot on the edge of the element so that the handle of the pot isn't above the element. This isn't vital, but if you plan on handling the pot without burning yourself, it will help a lot. On my pot, the handle stays cool to the tough as long as the handle is not hanging over the element.
5) As your mother always said: "a watched pot never boils." However, in this case, it's going to boil pretty quick. So, don't stray to far. Once it starts boiling, your going to hear it. It doesn't whistle, but it certainly will make a bubbling noise. Stand near by and listen, you'll hear it. 6) Once it starts boiling, it's almost done. Some people suggest removing it from the heat as soon as it starts boiling, other suggest waiting a bit. I, as yet, am undecided. My first brew, I left it on after it was boiling, but only because I wasn't sure what to do. Tonight, on my second brew, I left the pot on the element and simply turned the heat off. I let the pot sit for another minute until the sound of the boiling stopped.
7) That's it! You've brewed espresso. It really is that easy, and it would be pretty hard to screw it up. The fun part is going to be taking your espresso and adding some other ingredients and making something else. The easiest is a simple Americano, which is: 1 shot of espresso and some boiling water, enough to fill a coffee mug. Add a little cream to taste and your set. It's a nice change from coffee, and something quick to wow your friends with.
At present, I am going to focus on brewing a mean espresso. Practice will make perfect. But soon after, the world of frothed milk will fall into view.
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Sometimes, as is true in all facets of life, coffee isn't as good as it could be. But, when the Folgers drip swill is all that is available to you, you drink. (Or you don't, but at least the choice is there for you to make.)
An interesting post was made on Reddit today, where the poster lamented that humanity, when it all is said and done, will fail. We're going to die out, and that will be that. All we'll have to show for our existence is some scars on the planet we took for granted, and maybe, if our remains our discovered in short order, some monoliths and craft-work that, to the new found discoverers will speak of our antiquated forms or art and technology. We will be defined by whatever happens to remain, not by what we may regard as our highest attachments.
What it, in 26,000,000 years, all that remains of our species is the still lingering effects if the Exxon-Valdez wreckage and spill? Extrapolation could lead our discoverers to the conclusion that we were a careless people, one bent on greed and profit, and one who remained stagnant on our quest for higher knowledge. "Why," they might ask, "would this group of mammals put such a great amount of time and money into harvesting and burning the pressurized remains of carbon life forms long dead?" Surely they wouldn't have gone so far in determining the cause and intended purpose of such a scene, only to stop there extrapolation then. Surely they would have also noticed that despite the still ruined coastline and still un-mended debris we, as human, took on a herculean task of attempting to right our wrong. Surely they would have noticed the toothbrush marks on the rocks as we vainly attempted to scrub away our great misdeed. Potentially, although less likely, a breed of super-ducks emerged from the quagmire as the new alpha-species and these same ducks were the cause of humanities demise. But I consider that all very unlikely.
But what it something else is the defining discovery that is made, that will define our existence for future races? What if it is the CERN Super-Collider, or the International Space Station. What if these, our crowning achievements, are what we are remembered for. They will show us a race of beings that put aside our differences and instead worked together to build and perform on a scale exponentially higher than what any one individual could attain. We are not bent on greed on profit. We are explorers and discoverers. We seek, find and never rest on past discoveries. We are an ingenious race of creatures, and we are pushing ourselves to the very limits of our capabilities.
I think then, that when I started writing, I was going to say something about my coffee getting cold, but now I'm saying something about how humanity is not all that bad, really. I don't know how I got here from there.
An interesting post was made on Reddit today, where the poster lamented that humanity, when it all is said and done, will fail. We're going to die out, and that will be that. All we'll have to show for our existence is some scars on the planet we took for granted, and maybe, if our remains our discovered in short order, some monoliths and craft-work that, to the new found discoverers will speak of our antiquated forms or art and technology. We will be defined by whatever happens to remain, not by what we may regard as our highest attachments.
What it, in 26,000,000 years, all that remains of our species is the still lingering effects if the Exxon-Valdez wreckage and spill? Extrapolation could lead our discoverers to the conclusion that we were a careless people, one bent on greed and profit, and one who remained stagnant on our quest for higher knowledge. "Why," they might ask, "would this group of mammals put such a great amount of time and money into harvesting and burning the pressurized remains of carbon life forms long dead?" Surely they wouldn't have gone so far in determining the cause and intended purpose of such a scene, only to stop there extrapolation then. Surely they would have also noticed that despite the still ruined coastline and still un-mended debris we, as human, took on a herculean task of attempting to right our wrong. Surely they would have noticed the toothbrush marks on the rocks as we vainly attempted to scrub away our great misdeed. Potentially, although less likely, a breed of super-ducks emerged from the quagmire as the new alpha-species and these same ducks were the cause of humanities demise. But I consider that all very unlikely.
But what it something else is the defining discovery that is made, that will define our existence for future races? What if it is the CERN Super-Collider, or the International Space Station. What if these, our crowning achievements, are what we are remembered for. They will show us a race of beings that put aside our differences and instead worked together to build and perform on a scale exponentially higher than what any one individual could attain. We are not bent on greed on profit. We are explorers and discoverers. We seek, find and never rest on past discoveries. We are an ingenious race of creatures, and we are pushing ourselves to the very limits of our capabilities.
I think then, that when I started writing, I was going to say something about my coffee getting cold, but now I'm saying something about how humanity is not all that bad, really. I don't know how I got here from there.
Monday, January 7, 2013
So, we bought an stove-top espresso maker. We've used it once so far, and despite K. standing across the room from it and declaring it a bomb, no one died. It didn't even explode.
E. kept declaring what great coffee we had made, but was fortunate that I was able to remove the joy from the occasion, and reminded her that we were drinking Americano, not coffee.
I am looking forward to trying again, but am currently on the couch, and it is evening. Not espresso time. I'll try again on the morning, an report as soon as I get to work.
Also, this is a funny dog.
E. kept declaring what great coffee we had made, but was fortunate that I was able to remove the joy from the occasion, and reminded her that we were drinking Americano, not coffee.
I am looking forward to trying again, but am currently on the couch, and it is evening. Not espresso time. I'll try again on the morning, an report as soon as I get to work.
Also, this is a funny dog.
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