Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Tournament Report: San Diego 3 Weapon Open

This past Sunday I went up to Cathedral Catholic High School in San Diego and fenced in the local three weapon open. Well, it was a really small tournament, and thus short, which is good, as I pulled dead last. If I'm gonna do horribly, I'd at least like to do so in a timely fashion.

With eight people total participating, we had a full pool of all the competitors, and I went two and five. I don't feel great about how I fenced a couple of those, there were a couple where I was simply caught flat footed repeatedly, and others where I didn't adapt quickly enough. I felt okay about how I was moving, it's my tactics that are getting me in trouble. Anyway, another two weeks 'til the next tournament, I've got some stuff to work on.

Friday, October 5, 2012

What's Making Me Happy This Week, Pt. 2

A few weeks ago I was ruminating over how to connect my Xbox to the internet, as it didn't have a wireless adapter and the modem was in my room. I mentioned the idea of running an ethernet cable through the house to my roommate, and he proposed using the cable splitter that was right in front of the TV and the Xbox to set the modem and router up there. And lo, it was done. Why is this important, you may ask? Because, once again, I have Netflix streaming through my Xbox to my TV, and it is glorious.

I'm using this newfound access to catch up with a show I heard about a year and change ago that was supposed to be rather excellent, and I can now confirm that is true. 'Terriers' is based in San Diego and follows two down on their luck, unlicensed private investigators through their various misadventures. It's smartly written, well acted, and in the first two episodes it hasn't made a misstep, which I feel is rare. There aren't a lot of shows that don't have terrible pilots, but they came out swinging, which is just as well because there's only half a season of it. I'm usually leery of getting into TV series, as I'm a completionist and want to watch every episode of something (which is terrible for my time management). An unintimidating thirteen episodes is just about right to hook me, and hopefully it'll leave me wanting more.


The second thing making me happy this week is rediscovering a game called Braid. It's essentially Super Mario, in that you play a small fellow who stomps on goomba-creatures and defeats bosses in order to find and rescue a princess, who is perpetually in another castle. However, it is so much more than that. In addition to your usual running and jumping, in Braid you can reverse the flow of time. In each stage of the game, this works differently, and results in some very fun, occasionally frustrating puzzles. The story is great, the music is amazing, the art is astonishingly beautiful, and it's challenging. You can't ask for much more than that. And it's cheap! You can grab it for $10 off the Mac App Store or on Steam.


Thursday, October 4, 2012

Brewing Mead

For a while now, I've been fascinated with the idea of brewing up a mead, which is essentially fermented honey water. I looked up some instructions, and what struck me was how simple it was. In short:

Take 10-18 pounds of honey (depending on how dry or sweet you want your mead to be), and then mix in about 4 gallons of water. I grabbed 10 pounds from Mikolich Honey at the Little Italy Farmer's Market the day before.


Bring the entire concoction to about 190º farenheit and leave it there for at least twenty minutes to pasteurize it. While that's happening, skim off the foam that forms on top, as this is full of nasty junk you don't want in your mead.


Cool your must (the word for unfermented mead. Cue the 'more you know' rainbow!) down to 70-75º so that you can pitch the yeast. Then move the must to the sanitiized carboy. If you look carefully, you might see a wild, bearded 'Groth' assisting with this part of the operation.


Pitch the yeast! Then store in an appropriately cool spot (70º for this particular yeast) for a month before racking to a secondary fermenter. Some folks have suggested racking to a tertiary fermenter after another two months, and then aging it for a year. We'll see if we follow that particular plan, as it seems to be rather a long time to wait for a tasty beverage.

Special thanks to Groth and Ashok for being the brew crew for this one!