Posts

Making your own beer: Greatest. Hobby. Ever.

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I recently got into home brewing and I absolutely love it. I thought I'd share my experience as a first-time brewer, because I still can't get over the idea that, even though I made a few blunders along the way, I made a beer that tastes way better than stuff I normally buy - and for just a fraction of the cost.  Anyway, here are my beer notes: BEER SPECIFICS Batch no. 1 - Pa cific Pale Ale Beer kit brand: Morgan’s Brewing date: 21 May 2023 Bottling date: 30 May 2023 Tasting date: 25 June 2023 RECIPE Batch size: 23 L Sugars / malts: Aussie Brewmakers Beer Improver ( 1 kg) Yeast: supplied with beer kit (1 sachet), and later SafAle S-04 (11.5 g sachet) Pitching temperature: circa. 26 degrees Celsius Fermentation temperature: 22.5 – 23.5 degrees Celsius with Kegland controller BREWING NOTES 21/5 Beer brewed. Specifically, what I did was heat a 1.5 kg beer kit and add it to my fermenting vessel (FV) with the Beer Improver and 23 L of water. I pitched the sachet of

Hissrich destroyed Netflix’s "The Witcher"

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Some years ago, back when it was announced that  The Witcher was coming to TV, fans of Sapkowski’s books gave showrunner Lauren S. Hissrich some very blunt advice: if you want to succeed, don't fuck around with the source material. She told fans not to worry. When the first season dropped, casual watchers were pretty happy. Fans of Sapkowski were...also pretty happy. I thought the critics got it right - 68% feels pretty fair. I didn't mind the show. I wasn't exactly in love with a lot of the group combat scenes, and it felt a bit too much like a soap opera masquerading as a fantasy saga. Definitely had room to improve, but still, overall it wasn't bad. Unfortunately Hissrich's second season was not received well by fans.   I'd just like to highlight the massive disconnect between the professional critics and reality here. The fans definitely weren't fooled. In this season, Hissrich really started cooking Sapkowski's lore to shit. Bone-headed writing. T

When life gives you lemons...

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 ...count your blessings that you don't have to buy them at ridiculous prices from a  cartel  supermarket in Australia. $1.50 for a single fucking lemon! Get rekt, dickheads.

How to ruin a TV show or movie franchise in 6 simple steps

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  Attention studio bosses! Would you like to   make a shit TV show or movie sink an existing franchise lose a metric fuckton of money, your audience, your credibility, and have everyone giggle at your expense?    You would? Great! All you need to do is follow contemporary Hollywood's tried-and-tested formula: STEP 1 Create and air a show that leans HARD into identity politics, gender-swapped and/or race-swapped characters, and girlboss feminist bullshit. Bonus points if it's in a genre with a predominantly male audience i.e. sci-fi, fantasy, action. Regardless, make sure your white male characters are villains, comic relief, and/or weak and ineffectual STEP 2 When your audience baulks at your show's dumb content, immediately denounce  them as toxic woman-hating bigots. Ignore the fact that they're paying customers STEP 3 Claim that your show is a massive hit. Recruit media shills to help sell this obvious lie - spin, spin, spin! STEP 4 Renew your attacks on anyone who

The importance of not being full of shit

This story takes place at my grandparents’ house at Christmas in the early 1980s. I was about 5 or 6 years old. My aunt was spending time with my cousin, letting her choose something from her collection of costume jewellery. I wandered over to look. I wasn’t particularly interested in what they were doing, but my aunt must have assumed that I was envious of the attention my cousin was getting. “Don’t worry,” said my aunt, “it’s boys’ turn next time.” It was at that point that I became excited. Boys' turn! Oh man, surely that was something to look forward to! And so I waited patiently for weeks, months - and then years - but boys' turn never came. I didn't say anything because I thought my aunt was as good as her word. But she wasn't, and I lost respect for her. I get that people have a lot going on in their lives and maybe forget things, but she made me feel that I wasn't important to her. What's the moral of this story? YOU might forget the promises you

The Story of Rachel

When I was 3 or 4 years old, I lived next door to a girl called Rachel. We were the same age. She used to come over to play from time to time, and I remember having a bath with her once at her house. Our fathers were friends; Rachel's dad was a graphic artist and they used to work on oil paintings in a garage studio.  Rachel played rough with my toys. She often broke them, and in particular she used to grind the belly of my Fisher-Price aeroplane into the concrete walkway in our backyard. It made me mad. Our place was enclosed by a wall-of-splinters fence about 2 metres high with a gate set in it. It was all painted mission brown because 1970s. One day Rachel came to the side of the house where I was playing and asked me to open the gate. To spare my remaining toys from destruction, I said no. She ignored me and began climbing over the fence, but not before she asked me to hold her Vegemite sandwich. The sandwich was a single slice of bread that was buttered and Vegemited on on

Revenge is a dish best served petty

Once upon a time in a land far away, I worked for a recruiter. They were based in another city and I didn’t work for them directly, but they paid my salary. The job was a pretty standard ESL teaching gig, the sort of thing a normal person tolerates for a year or two before finding something better. Naturally, I stayed in the role for four years. About the only good thing you could say about the recruiter was that they paid on time. Otherwise they were dogshit. There was no career path, and they offered no bonuses for performance or incentives of any kind. No raises, either, including adjustments for inflation! They were also very difficult to contact, especially if you needed them for anything. As soon as they got on you on board, they more or less ignored you. A year or two into my contract, the recruiter sent me an email. They need me to give them Document X. I delete the email. I figure that if they don’t respond when I need stuff, why should I be any different? Being considerate is