except you.

presented by penny arcade. that link probably won't work for a little while, but the current comic link does.

i'm with tycho. i've never cared much for sports on television, particularly football. i had many friends with similar leanings. then something happened in college. i started meeting and befriending geek-inclined individuals who cared about sports on tv. then a little after college some of my fellow television sports apathetics started talking to me about sports on tv, as though i also had started to care about such matters. every once in a while i try, but it never takes. i accept this, just as i accept most people do not share my enthusiasm for experimental electronic music, video games, or martial arts.

it isn't so much that other people can't accept this, but as penny-arcade illustrates, it is simply beyond the scope of what many people anticipate as a likely answer. there was a football game. they expect i'll be a fan of one of the teams, or at least have an opinion regarding the aptitude of the referees or the excellence of a particular play. strangers waiting in line near me strike up conversations about games i was unaware had ever transpired. i know that if i try to answer i'll sound like an idiot, because i won't know what i'm talking about. i usually try anyway just bo polite. if i answer honestly (as i have on occasion) some people think your just trying to be rude, which isn't different than the people who think my vague content-free answer attempts are rude. those who know me better only ask me in jest, waiting to see what sort of stupid attempt at an answer i might concoct.

admittedly, i cared about the bulls when they used to win everything, and i care a little now if the i hear the cubs have won something. but this is just home town patriotism. i don't really want to watch the whole game. and i actually only watch it on my own if i happen to be at my parents' house. they are sports fans.

my mother told me good, my mother told me strong. she said be true to yourself and you can't go wrong.

i plan to celebrate by doing something completely unrelated.

maybe i'll take a nap. they always play the commercials again later, and that the only part i care about. although i don't even care about those very much.

represent.

if you haven't had the pleasure of trying rooibos tea, you're missing out. you can read about it here.

this is adapted from a green tea ice cream recipe.

the recipe i chose says it makes "one generous quart," but that's how much it makes before it is churned. it was slightly more than i should have put into my 1.5 quart ice cream maker. you might want to half this or churn it in two batches if your ice cream maker has less than two quarts of capacity. or you can do what i did and take a large scoop of it out and eat it when it gets to be too much for ice cream maker.

here is what you need:

8 large egg yolks
3/4 cup plus two tbsp sugar (or 1 cup minus two tbsp, or 7/8 cup)
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups whole milk
1/2 cup loose rooibos tea
2 1/2 cups heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla extract (added because it goes with the rooibos so well)

here is what you do:

in a mixing bowl, beat the egg yolks. then add the sugar and salt and combine thoroughly.

put the milk into a saucepan and scald it. remove from heat. add loose rooibos tea. cover and allow to steep for 5 to 6 minutes. strain through fine mesh sieve into a new pot.

add the heavy cream and vanilla extract. bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. add 1/3 of this mixture to the egg yolk mixture while whisking. this is called tempering the egg yolks, which means bringing the temperature up slowly to keep the eggs from scrambling. mix it thoroughly and then add it back to the pot. cook mixture until it coats the back of a spoon, about 5 minutes.

strain the mixture through a fine mesh sieve into a clean, sealable container. put this into the refridgerator until completely cool. i cooled it overnight, but i suppose you could get it cold enough in a couple hours. the colder it is before it freezes, the better.

crank up your ice cream maker and slowly add the mixture. let it churn until you get the sound of the ice cream maker to change, probably about 25-30 minutes. transfer to plastic container with lid and put it into the freezer to harden. a few hours should do it.

tasty. if you wanted this to be green tea ice cream instead, follow the same directions replacing the rooibos with green tea and omitting the vanilla.

penny arcade made a strip that plays well into the ongoing battle. i didn't post it friday because the permanent link wasn't working yet. in case you're unfamiliar with penny arcade, i'll warn you that it's often crass.

it turns out gabe and tycho are also divided on pineapple.

old school

i hear there are some people here in the circle that play diablo ii. i received the diablo ii battle chest for christmas from my friend bill. i think he may be trying to ease me in to wanting to play WoW. now that i mention that, i think a couple of players of diablo ii here may have moved on to something more addictive. diablo ii is a gateway drug.

anyway, if any of you folks want to game it up, i can be reached at subgeek at gmail. once in a while you can catch me on aim as halbergeek. i don't turn aim on very often.

new school

i hit the after christmas/store going out of business sales and also picked up vampire the masquerade: bloodlines and f.e.a.r. for myself. i'm a decent way into vampire and can see that it's lacking some polish, but it's still fun enough for me to keep on playing. my character is pretty ugly so has a hard time luring victims away to feed. i have to keep buying blood from the freaky dude who works the night shift at the blood bank. i keep looking over at f.e.a.r. and being tempted to fire it up, but i've already got enough games going for the time being.

peanut butter

i crafted some particularly fine peanut butter. i gave everyone in my family and in madith's family a little jar of my home made peanut butter. i made a gallon of it all together. getting really good reviews. so here's how to do it. get a pound of good quality unsalted dry roasted peanuts. i have been using bulk peanuts from whole foods. put them into a food processor. add half a teaspoon of salt. i know you got unsalted peanuts for this, but there would be way more salt if you did it that way. add a dash of cayenne pepper. don't worry, the end product does not taste peppery or spicy at all. it just adds a little extra that like the salt, you wouldn't notice unless it was missing. put the cover on the food processor and let it fly. you can leave it on a lower setting if you want until everything is well chopped. after you turn it up, it might seem like nothing is happening. if you're patient, everything will start mixing again. let it go until all of the peanut butter is mixing in a sort of wave around the spindle. on my food processor, i then wait until the wave smooths out and the blade speed goes up a little (i can tell from the sound). now add three tablespoons of honey. i use the alton brown method of one squeeze of the honey bottle being equal to a teaspoon, so that's 9 squeezes. also add two tablespoons of peanut oil. when it looks all mixed up, you can finally turn the food processor off. this should yield just about the right amount to fill a 16 oz jar. if there's any left over you can just eat it. it will be a little runny at this stage because it will be warm from having been in the food processor for so long. if you don't keep it in the fridge, eventually oil will start to separate back out, if that happens, just mix it back up.

more food related babble

i got so much cooking stuff for christmas. it's awesome. the knife sharpener is nice. once i got the feel of it i was able to restore my henckels nearly to their original sharpness. i got one of those ultra whip adjustable measuring cups, a micro plane grater/zester, a santoku knife (kitchen aid), and a shimomura japanese style cleaver with the cool lamanated steel blade. i got way more stuff then i expected. even an apron, so i don't have to continue putting oil stains on my shirts with my sloppiness.

i also got an ice cream maker for christmas, which is awesome. i found a recipe for green tea ice cream, which i'm going to alter to make rooibos ice cream. if it turns out well, i'll share that recipe. first i have to get off my ass to the north market to get some loose rooibos tea. may not be for a while. i already made dark chocolate ice cream, which is super rich, but it was basically just the standard chocolate ice cream recipe using dutch process cocoa powder instead of melting unsweetened baking chocolate bars. i know it's a dairy product so it's not really dark chocolate, but it is as dark as dark chocolate instead of being the lighter milk chocolate color of standard chocolate ice cream. and it's more chocolatey and richer. good stuff. enough babbling about food for now.

happy late new year to you all.

merry christmas to all. and if you're not a celebrator of this holiday, have a nice day.

just got back from the in-laws, who being german celebrate christmas on christmas eve. i have to get to bed so i can have american christmas with my side of the family tomorrow, which is technically today, but won't be today for me until i've gotten some sleep.

hoffentlich ist der Weihnachtsmann bei euch fleissig.

beats a visit from krampus. for a recent interpretation, check out a very venture christmas.

four jobs you've had in your life
caddy
welder
bmw motorcycle mechanic/salesman/whatever else they needed
pricing coordinator

four movies you could watch over and over
star wars
the man who knew too little
rat race
joe vs. the volcano

four cities you've lived in
chicago, il
northbrook, il
dublin, oh
upper arlington, oh

four tv shows you love to watch
venture brothers
good eats
deadly arts
no reservations with anthony bourdain

four places you've been on vacation
washington state (near seattle)
germany (most areas in the country)
san diego, ca
adirondacks

four websites you visit daily
slashdot
penny arcade
[H]ard|OCP
CGTalk

four of your favorite foods
lamb vindaloo
chimichangas
gang panang
reuben sandwich

four places you'd rather be right now
whatever

i wasn't thrilled with the way i tested, but i did prove i knew the curriculum for my level. so i was promoted to antas lima (level five), which is low green in modern arnis.

the main problem is that i get nervous about tests. i had some other useful things to work on my instructors told me about, which if they had been my only obstacles i would have thought i tested really well. i need to make my motions a little more fluid. i need to angle off a little more. according to my instructors, i'm also a little hard on myself.

in other news, this cover of björk's "army of me" is one of the funniest things i've heard in a long while. whatever makes brits take up country music is beyond me, but they're not bad at it.

warning: slashdot games section color scheme appears in the following link.

http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/23/138200&tid=128&tid=211&tid=10

notice taco's journalistic integrity. from the can't-say-anyone-is-surprised dept.

all i ever remember reading about the 360 from it's announcement is how everyone said what an unstable piece of crap it was going to be and how it wouldn't be worth buying. wait, i mean everyone said how great it would be.

oh, i get it. microsoft is bad. how funny and original. sure, microsoft has had more than its share of problems. and it does suck for those who got faulty consoles. but let's think about it. microsoft doesn't have a whole lot of options other than fixing this as soon as they can. they need the 360 to do well. a stained reputation and the impression that they don't care about customers that have problems at the beginning of the product cycle isn't going to help their sales over the next five or six years, the life expectancy of this generation of consoles. microsoft has botched it several times before, but i think they've noticed that they've botched it and that there is a lot of resentment out there. after all, they want to continue to make ridiculous amounts of money. i think they know how to do that by now.

don't get too excited. i haven't aquired a mac and still don't see myself considering it as a good idea.

i do have a friend whose seven month old ibook g4 running OSX 10.3.9 started crashing frequently at random intervals yesterday. he's getting an error something to the effect of:

system failure: cpu:0; code 000000007 (unaligned stack)

there's also a bit that says:

backtrace terminated-frame not mapped or invalid

i know enough to get that the memory stack is out of whack, but not a whole lot more than that. any mac people seen this? anyone know if it's usually hardware or software? any diagnosis we can do to find out?

is he better off just taking it to a mac store?

thanks.

here is an ad that gmail seemed to think i would be able to read. i saw it on a conversation a friend and i were having about music bands. if you take this ecode section and look at it as an html file, you'll see why it's a strange ad for an english conversation. had to use entities because slashdot doesn't display these characters.

note: chinese fonts required

<a href="http://www.paylessbookstore.com/yingcheng/CDBestSeller.asp">&#24800;&#21451;&#32593;:&#28023;&#22806;&#20013;&#25991;&#38899;&#20687;&#24635;&#27719;</a><br>
1&#19975;&#22810;&#31181;&#22823;&#38470;&#28207;&#21488; &#38899;&#20048; &#30005;&#35270;&#21095; &#30005;&#24433;<br>
&#20840;&#29699;5-7&#22825;&#24555;&#36882;&#37197;&#36865; &#20445;&#35777;&#20302;&#20215;<br>
www.paylessbookstore.com

i can't read chinese, so i'm not sure what this has to do with built to spill or the halobenders, the bands that my friend was describing in the email that prompted this advertisement.

i looked at other messages and came back to that email conversation and still got the same ad. so i know it wasn't a one-time fluke.

1. Name someone with the same birthday as you.

my little sister, who has a slashdot id, but doesn't use it. sarah michelle gellar.

2. Where was your first kiss?

hiding in my garage. sor some reason it seemed the place a couple 10 year olds were least likely to get caught.

3. Have you ever seriously vandalized someone else's property?

oh yes.

4. Have you ever hit someone of the opposite sex?

i've hit my sister when we were kids. i've hit women in training fencing and martial arts, but that's goes with the territory.

5. Have you ever sung in front of a large number of people?

yes i have.

6. What's the first thing you notice about the preferred sex?

eyes, smile, expression.

7. What really turns you on?

not so much a specific thing. depends on mood. could be a look, could be a kiss. could just be as trite as pulchritude

8. What do you order at Starbucks?

it's been so long i don't remember.

9. What is your biggest mistake?

only one? damn. i've been quick to judge a few times. i've worked hard not to, but sometimes i still manage to on occasion.

10. Have you ever hurt yourself on purpose?

more than just a few times.

11. Say something totally random about yourself.

i am a really late bloomer.

12. Has anyone ever said you look like a celebrity?

yes.

13. Do you still watch kiddy movies or tv shows?

if they're any good, yes.

14. Did you have braces?

no, but i probably should have.

15. Are you comfortable with your height?

yes. i'm just shy of six feet. not so tall as to stick out, but still slightly taller than average.

16. What is the most romantic thing someone of the preferred sex has done for you?

that is a difficult thing to quantify. at the right moment, a smile can be incredibly romantic.

17. When do you know it's love?

shen i start wondering if i'm in love.

18. Do you speak any other languages?

ich kann gut Deutsch.

yo pude hablar español. no recuerdo mucho de las palabras. no puedo los verbos conjugo muy bien.

je parle seulement un petit peu français.

tá beagán gaeilge agam

my german is pretty good. we'll call it fluent, but a little rusty.

i used to be fluent in spanish, but have forgotten most of what i knew.

i can get around in french with basic things; my french writing is for crap; my reading is only slightly better.

i know some key irish gaelic phrases, but reading and writing is mostly beyond me. i can ask for directions and order food, but that's about it.

19. Have you ever been to a tanning salon?

no, and i don't plan on it.

20. What magazines do you read?

tape op, computer graphics world.

21. Have you ever ridden in a limo?

no.

22. Has anyone you were really close to passed away?

yes. an uncle, a teacher who was very much a mentor, some other relatives.

23. Do you watch mtv?

no.

24. What's something that really annoys you?

self infatuation.

25. What's something you really like?

wisdom.

26. Do you like Michael Jackson?

like as in i like a few of his songs, but i don't really like it that much, which is different than disliking. i recognize that he is talented, but he doesn't make the kind of music that i really enjoy.

27. Can you dance?

i guess.

28. What's the latest you have ever stayed up?

i don't remember what time it was, but it was after 3 or 4 days of being awake.

29. Have you ever been rushed by an ambulance into the emergency room?

no.

30. Do you actually read these when other people fill them out?

sometimes.

32. What are your car/truck radio buttons set to?

classical 89.7 WOSU, public radio/NPR 90.5 WCBE, WWCD 101.1 modern rock

33. When you're completely burned out, what's a good way to recharge (other than sleep)?

music, martial arts, time with the wife.

34. What's your favourite place that you've travelled to?

berlin and the black forest are about tied.

35. What do you want to try that you haven't yet?

scuba diving, t'ai chi, fatherhood, truffles (the fungus)...

36. Five things you love to eat, and five things you hate to eat?

thai food, mexican food, indian food, cheese, kiwi

sültze, beef liver, brussel sprouts, gristle

37. Did you learn to drive stick or automatic first?

automatic. i also learned to crawl before i could walk.

38. Do you like board games?

most of them.

39. Tell me your opinion about gambling.

it's like so many things considered vices. it isn't bad in itself, but it becomes bad in excess. i also think that casinos thrive because people like the idea of getting something for nothing, which almost never happens.

40. How many dictionaries do you own?

i don't even know. more than five, fewer than twenty-five.

41. What's your favorite medium to work in?

the soul.

42. What was your undergraduate major, and was it always that or did you switch?

as a freshman i started out with a dual major in studio art and computer science. as a sophomore i added german for a triple major. my junior year i dropped computer science both so i could take more art classes and because i realized i didn't want to code for a living.

43. Worst physical pain you've been in?

that is a funny question. i've experienced severe physical pain many times, but i've found that my state of mind has clouded the connection i have had to it in different situations. just to pick something i'll say the time i fell off the deck of a mostly finished halfpipe onto the thin edge of a 4' x 8' sheet of plywood, landing on the soft part of my side between my left crest of iliac and my lowest rib. i ended up with a bruise that started a couple inches to the left of my navel and wrapped around to to four or five inches to the left of my spine.

but i've also had my flesh ground off on pavement, burned myself, and smashed muscles. maybe the most painful smashing of a muscle was when i missed a three foot madonna air on a half pipe and landed with the middle of the outside of my thigh on the coping of the halfpipe. i've since learned that the spot i landed on corresponds to the meridian gall bladder 31.

44. Who's your best friend?

if i have to pick one, i'd say my wife madith. although i have a few very close friends that i don't like to choose favorites between, so i'll list them by how long i've known them, my father, my younger sister, jens, mike, sloan, and bill. i feel blessed to have that many close friends.

45. Was high school good? Why (not)?

the first two years sucked. the last two years ruled.

46. What kinds of music do you like best? Get specific, if you can.

i like electronic/industrial type music, specifically IDM, intelligent industrial, crossover industrial, drum 'n'bass, etc.

i also like classical, particularly the romantic period, but also some neo-classical music, which shares a lot with IDM outside of instrumentation.

47. Last three CDs you bought:

jackson and his computer band smash
the warp records compilation we are reasonable people
the postal service we become silhouettes (probably, it could have been something else.)

48. And conversely, what kinds of music would you rather never hear?

mainstream house music, new country

49. Five favorite movies:

the fifth element
joe vs. the volcano
star wars
lord of the rings
the matrix

and honorable mentions to
hero
la story
dead men don't wear plaid
kung fu hustle
shadow of the vampire
the man who knew too little

several others

50. What's something other people like that you just can't get into?

sex in the city

51. When you want to look good, what do you wear?

black.

52. When your heart breaks, how do you put it back together?

art

53. Should the following be exterminated:
white briefs:
since there are people who have excrement fetishes, i imagine someone somewhere is turned on by those things. who am i to deny them their secret pleasure? not for me, though; they can find them somewhere else.
blue eyeshadow:
good for period works and haute couture runway shows
pants that create the muffin-top look on women:
wtf?
flip flops in the office:
depends on the office, i suppose

54. Were you a Boy/Girl Scout?

for about a week.

55. Can you swim?

yes. i won't win any races, but i can get around in the water.

56. Tell me your guilty pleasures:
song:
ace of bass, jem
book:
i don't feel guilty about reading.
movie:
dude, where's my car?
food:
i don't feel guilty about eating. i'm 6 feet tall and only weigh 165 lbs.
other:
schadenfreude

57. Do you have a library card?

a current one? no.

58. What's the best present you've received in the past five years?

59. Do you have a favorite:
Painter:
gerhard richter
Sculptor:
rodin or umberto boccioni
Photographer:
man ray
(fiction):
herman hesse
(science fiction/fantasy):
star wars books, tolkien, philip k. dick
Poet:
i don't know, goethe?
(nonfiction):
art technique, art history, history, how to, ...

60. You're in a strange city for the weekend. What will you do while you're there?

taste the local food, talk to the locals, see anything unique to that town

61. Are you thrifty?

usually, but sometimes i am not.

62. You bought tickets for a cultural event. What are you going to see?

the symphony or a piano concert, although most recently it was a ballet.

63. What's something you're hanging onto that you don't need anymore?

my old library card and piles of other things.

i've been studying martial arts, specifically modern arnis, for nearly a year and a half. i've earned my high blue belt, which is the fourth level in modern arnis. i posted something in someone's journal that got me thinking about it more, so i've decided to make my own journal entry.

i consider myself a creative person. while i don't consider my creations particularly phenomenal compared to others, i do think that the process is important to my maintaining a good inner balance. for many years i've been stuck thinking about the quality of my creations and worrying about whether they were "good enough." last year i got the idea that taking up a martial art might be beneficial to me in many ways. i was right.

i am really grateful that i found the modern arnis, and i'm equally grateful that i'm studying under the instructors at my school. they're "only" third and second degree black belts, although the head instructor is unofficially fourth and is just waiting for some red tape before it becomes official. that isn't the point. the point is the kind of people they are and their approach to the art. they are approachable and willing to learn from outside the art. the instructors i have really take an interest in the art for the art's sake, which is common, but not always the way in people below the master level. i've had the opportunity to train with the masters, and there is no questioning that they all have a staggering amount of knowledge or that they truly love the art. but they live far away from me and my relationship to them is different.

i've learned about relationships and myself and maintaining balance. i've learned a better way of approaching my creative endeavors. i've learned that it's ok if everything i make isn't top notch, as long as i take a lesson away from the time i spent working on it. i've learned that i will improve more if in addition to finished works, i let myself work on things that are simply studies. just like a drill or flow pattern may not be actual combat but prepares me and teaches me, practice in any other creative endeavor is paramount to creating good finished works. i've learned that this is true of all endeavors, not just creative ones; or rather i've learned that all endeavors are creative, whether it's making something or it's the relationship i'm building with my wife or it's finding a job.

things are good. i'm learning how to move a little faster. i'm still working on making the best use of my time. but i see my 3d portfolio starting to come together. soon it will be time to jump out there with it and see what happens. i'll let you know if anything does.

in the mean time, i'd like to encourage anyone who has every toyed with the idea of picking up a martial art to go ahead and give it a try. visit a couple schools and see what you like. i'd be suspect of a school that doesn't allow people either to observe a class or participate in a trial class before they commit to a program. some styles and schools are really traditional, and some are completely without tradition. there is a full spectrum of teaching styles and martial art styles. find something that interests you and give it a shot.