Babes and Beer |
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Drinking beer, being married, and raising kids.  A Nosuch affiliate. 
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Tuesday, April 30, 2002
4/30/02 10:54:48a Honor thinks, "Congratulations go out to Humbaba, who has just passed the fourth circle fighter test."
Wooo hoooo! \yell BEEEeeeEEEEER!
T-minus 12 days and counting.
No changes on the baby front. During our faux baby shower on Sunday we took some baby blue ribbon and tied it around Bridget with a big bow in front, and had a contest to guess how long the ribbon is. (I know some women would be uptight about something like this, but Bridget knows she's not fat so she doesn't care) I knew she was 40" around, but didn't enter. I would have lost badly anyway, the ribbon ended up 67" around, I can hardly believe there was 27" of bow. The prize was a $25 gift certificate at Barnes and Noble, but I'd lost it. Isabel and I had gone down to University Village, the mall down the hill to buy it earlier that day. That mall is one of those outdoor uncovered bunch-of-strip-malls type of places. Ten years ago it had a hardware store, a grocery store, a cheap department store, and some smaller shops. New management kicked those all out and knocked down a bunch of stuff, now it's excruciatingly trendy and hoity-toity. Abercrombie & Fitch (complete with protesters these days due to their recent Asian-American gaffe), Restoration Hardware, Pottery Barn, Sundance Store, etc. The department store got replaced with a two-story Barnes & Noble and an Eddie Bauer. Anyway, I sorta got sidetracked there. I bought a few books and the gift certificate I was sent to buy, and when I got home I set it down somewhere. During the party I could NOT find the gift cert, I was sure I'd given it to B but she said I'd just shown it to her. I was sure I had, and figured she forgot it since pregnant women's brains are majorly chemically scattered. Finally sunday night I looked everywhere, out in the car, I even searched the garbage to make sure it hadn't gotten "cleaned up". I finally found the bag with the three books and the gift card hanging on the friggin' coat rack in the living room. Gahhh! If it was a snake it would have bitten me. Dork Dork Dork. However, in the process I didn't fully shut Bridget's car door, and the dome light was on all night. Bridget called me up yesterday morning to report her car wouldn't start. Sigh. I hopped back on my bike to head home so she wouldn't be stranded, since the baby seat can't go in the truck cuz of the airbags. Fortunately it was an absolutely LOVELY day for a bike ride, it's even warm enough to wear shorts. I get home, pull the jumper cables out of the truck, walk over to the car which fortunately was nose up to the Vista Cruiser, fire up the Vista, pop it's hood, pop the hood on her Kia, clamp the jumper to positive on her battery, look into the Vista to see it's got side-post battery terminals and they're a pain to get to, clamp onto positive on the Vista, clamp onto negative on the vista, and finally clamp onto the ground post on the engine block on the Kia. Hop in, the Kia fires right up. Reverse the procedure to unclamp the jumpers, close both hoods, shut down the Vista. I was laughing at Bridget, saying "I bet you'd never guess it'd be the 30 year old station wagon helping the 5 year old sedan in a breakdown!" On the clan lord front, Humbaba will be taking his 4th circle test again today. He bought a gossamer recently, but hasn't trained it yet, he's on a pure-balthus schedule until he passes 4th. Monday, April 29, 2002
All Quiet on the Baby Front
T-minus 13 days and counting. Bridget's been having contractions for over a week, as her body gets ready. We went to her OB on Thursday (every thurs from now until delivery) and she was 2.5cm dialated (out of 10cm total). Last time she was 2cm dialated for over two weeks before delivery, but this is a whole nother ballgame. We keep thinking it may be any day, but finally we figured out that wasn't the best attitude, since it might be weeks away, so now we're being more realistic and accepting it might be on time or late instead of early. On Friday we went out to dinner with my old best friend from high school. He works for HP in Boise these days. His wife is also pregnant, due in July. It was fun seeing them. On Saturday I took Isabel and went down to Husky Stadium for their Spring Scrimmage, a free open-to-the-public event. It was good dad-n-daughter time, taking her to a football game. We watched part of the first quarter and all of the second quarter. The backup QBs weren't doing well, but the first string QB Cody Picket and the two top receivers were slaughtering things, getting 22-25 yards per play. Sweet! Should be a fun season this fall. 124 days until Husky Foooootball! We open our season at Michigan, that's gonna be tough! After we got home I had to start working preparing for my role in my friend's birthday party. His wife had planned a Hawaiian-themed party, and I'd volunteered to bartend. I was also loaning them my string of Tiki God lights, they're a string of seven 12" tall plastic Easter Island head lights. I'd also bought a coconut to use as my personal drink holder. I took my Sawzall out of the garage and used it to slice the top off the coconut, poured out the milk inside, and voila! I had my drink cup. Just add booze and umbrella. I dug out my Hamilton Beach commercial bar blender (sorta like this one and my ice crusher, and put on shorts and my wildest Hilo Hatties Hawaiian shirt (actually bought in a Hilo Hatties in Hilo) and some sunglasses, and headed over to their place. Bridget was going to arrive later, Grandma was going to stay with Isabel. They'd put up all sorts of decorations, and had turned their heat up to 75F, so people would be comfortable in shorts. They had prepared some laminated drink cards for the drinks I'd be making, but most were either a Mai Tai or variant, or froo-froo blender drinks, mostly Pina Colada and variants. The Lava Flow, for instance, is a Pina Colada, but you put two spoons of strawberry puree in the glass beforehand and swirl it around to coat the glass, then pour the drink into the glass. The pink coating makes for a very pretty drink, plus strawberry goes well with coconut. Another fun drink was the Horny Monkey. That recipe was cribbed from a book I got as a present, "Tiki Drinks". It's basically lotsa banana liquer, rum of course, and it's garnished with a whole peeled banana. heh. Glub damn but a bartender works hard. I was cranking out drinks left and right. I kept a pint glass handy, I poured the blender dregs into that, and used it to refill my friend Corey's glass. I mean, c'mon, one blender drink is much like another, they all mix together fine. After a few frufy blender drinks, people figured out that blender drinks are not session drinks, and mostly moved on to beer or quit drinking, so my work declined dramatically and I abandoned my post to go sit in the back room with Bridget. Let me take this interlude to describe her outfit. She had a blue silk 1950s hawaiian shirt she's owned forever, but she didn't have any shorts for *that* pregnant a lady. She did have her pregnant lady denim miniskirt, so she wore that with a print beach wrap covering it up. Then she tied the ends of the shirt together right under her boobs, exposing a vast tract of pregnant belly. She took her facepaint crayons and wrote Aloha! on her belly. Pretty funny. If we'd had any artistic talent, putting some coconut trees would have been awesome, but that was beyond us. It was a great outfit. My friend Chuck offered me a freakin' beautiful cigar, a La Gloria Cubana Series R. Damn good smoke, but way too much nicotine in it. I had been drinking coffee so I was slightly buzzed on caffiene, and to add nicotine to the mix totally gave me the heebie-jeebies. Ah, nothing like the too-much-stimulant jitters! Fun party. We spent sunday getting ready for our own party. It was sorta a baby shower, except we already have pretty much everything we need for a baby, so we told people if they wanted to bring us a gift, bring diapers. Bridget's friend Sophie (who rents out our basement apartment) was throwing the party for us, and she made the coolest cake. I'd picked Elephants for Isabel's theme critter, because the zoo had that new baby elephant that is so cute, and Isabel has a ton of beany baby elephants, a elephant themed baby quilt, lots of elephant stuff. For the boy I'd picked dinosaurs as his theme, and Sophie had made a big old sheet cake in the shape of a brontosaurus! It was awesome. Too cute. The weather has turned excellent, sunny and in the high 60s, so when the party was starting I'd taken my beer and went out onto the porch. Our house faces east, so the porch was in the shade, and the sun automagically gravitated me forward to the driveway where it was sunny. A few friends followed, and immediately once in the sun we went "Oh yeah, THIS is where it's at". I went to the garage to get some folding chairs, and snuck back into the kitchen to grab the cooler full of beer. We set up our own little driveway party. BEeeeeeEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeerrrr!!! Then this morning I find out one of my oldest friend's wife is pregnant, due in October. They'd been told numerous times that she couldn't get pregnant without heavy fertility treatments, so they are shocked and I am very happy for them. Thursday, April 25, 2002
Had a great time yesterday afternoon. Went home at noon, surprising Bridget. She was feeding Isabel, who loved that I was home early, she gets very excited to see me, yelling Dada and throwing her arms into the air and smiling HUGE. Very fun.
We went to a new playfield they built at Magnusun Park. This park was originally Sandpoint Naval Air Station, an airport in the '40s, and part was converted to a park a long time ago, probably in the 70s. The navy base there was where I did my Marine Reserve weekends back in college. In 1992 as part of the national move to consolidate military bases, they closed it and now a bunch more is park. There were some other babies and mom's from one of Bridget's baby groups there. Isabel LOVED playing on the blanket in the grass, but still doesn't like the grass itself, she won't touch it or leave the blanket. She also loved going down the slides and really loved swinging, her first time on a playground swing. Every time she came close I'd tickle her toes and she'd laugh, then she'd get all excited as she swung back, knowing I was gonna get her again. I really love that little girl, she's so much fun. After we went home we put her down for a nap and I did a ton of yardwork, mowing both front and back lawns, edging, sweeping, and working on the huge beaverdam pile of branches from tree pruning. On May 4th I'm hauling a bunch of it over to a friend who lives out in the country and can get a burn permit. He's got a mombo 5m by 5m slashpile already, we're going to have a fun burn. Fire! Wooo! Poker was fun, I was up huge but then ended up down six bucks. After my brother's visit my beer fridge is down to only Guinness, so after one I decided to have a snort or two of single malt whiskey (aka scotch). Bowmore was the one in the decanter, so that's what I had. Mmmm! Wednesday, April 24, 2002
Holy Glub!
I was just turned onto the Baen Free Web Library, a site with free downloads of the full text of a bunch of cool scifi books. Sweet! I've recently read 1632, A Mother of Demons, and A Hymn Before Battle, but you can bet I'll take a look at some of the others up there. You can also bet I'll buy hardcopy of the ones I like.
Wooo! Today is what I think used to be secretary's day, but here they call it "Admin Professionals Day". I get the afternoon off, plus they had bagels and fruit in this morning. Ah, a spring afternoon off on a gloriously sunny day!
Last night I had a blast with Isabel at swim class. It's tough changing clothes in the locker room one-handed while holding onto her. It'll be a lot easier when she can stand up on her own. Damn, the Mariners are off to a 17-4 start. Amazing. T-18 days and counting. Uff. I can't believe I'm going to have a second kid so soon. I've been blogging for 11 months today, but will have had two children born before I hit the year mark. Ok, I can barely admit this, but it's true. I like watching a WB show. Gilmore Girls, no less. Bridget got me hooked on it. Crazy, I've gotta be the only 34 year old guy in that show's demographic. Don't tell any of my meatspace friends, I'd never hear the end of it. Tuesday, April 23, 2002
I finally remembered to order some It's A Boy cigars. Artero Fuente Brevas, tasty! No crappy cigars for my boy!
Monday, April 22, 2002
Blarg.
Man, I was hung like a french monkey yesterday. My older brother Steve and his wife Jody came over Saturday evening, they were going to see yesterday's afternoon Mariner's game. After some tasty thai food for dinner, we got Dan and Kurt and the four brother and one sister-in-law went off to find a pub to play some pool in. We started out going to the College Inn Pub, a nice basement bar with lots of dark wood and dank in spades. All good pubs have dank. We started off with a pitcher of Grant's Imperial Stout. Apparently in Czarist Russia, one of the Czars had a thing for dark stout, so of course all the toadying courtiers did as well, and it became a game of one-upmanship to see who could create the darkest possible stout. This genre became the Imperial Stout, which is a heck of a tasty beverage if you don't mind the taste of charcoal. Heh. Personally I love it. My brothers were taking turns playing pool with a young couple, and getting their ass kicked. I noticed that the menu had Diamond Knot IPA, which at one point was my all-time favorite beer. Mmmm! We ordered a pitcher of that as well. Jody was drinking her own pints of Widmer Hefewisen, (aka heftyweasel), and Dan doesn't drink, so it was just me, Steve, and Burt drinkin' the pitchers. After we'd downed those and the boys lost four games of pool I convinced the gang to motate up the Ave to Big Time Brewery, which is about a block north. Big Time brews their own fine beverages, and while they don't have pool, they do have a tabletop shuffleboard. Shuffleboard is a blast to play, a 22' by about 2' polished wood lane (like a bowling alley lane) on a table, covered with little grains of salt or other stuff to help make it low-friction, and you slide weighted metal pucks down to the far end to score. We had a pitcher of cask-conditioned dry-hopped Bhagwan's Best IPA, which was damn tasty, and started playin' shuffleboard. Hours later, we'd gotten pretty damn drunk. I remember a pitcher of Coal Creek Porter, and at least one other, but with hindsite Kurt and I figured out that the three of us drank six pitchers in total, plus the beers at dinner... Uff-da! We'd been giving Steve crap about having a small dick, and we'd gotten to the point where he was drunk enough to want to pull it out for a sizing comparision. heh. At this point I decided I'd had enough of everything and decided to walk home. The walk home through campus and the greek system was pleasant, and I crashed hard. Sunday morning I was feeling mega-nauseaous. Alka-seltzer killed the pounding headache, but I was a hurtin' unit. Normally whenever we get 4 or more brothers together we have a breakfast of Eggs A-la-Dan, which involved six eggs per brother, half a head of shredded cabbage per brother, and various and sundry miscelanious ingredients. Yesterday it was purple cabbage which turned the eggs blue, plus anahiem chilies and pepperoni. It looked tasty to me, but I couldn't eat anything, I was feeling like hurling. Around noon I recovered mostly, and B and I loaded up the baby and went for a sunday drive, looking at open houses. Found a house on Capital Hill, no real view, 5-bedroom but two of them had to be under 80 square feet, 1.5 bathrooms, but the half bath was outside!!!, $629,000. Ouch. Nofuckingway would I want that house at $350k, let alone almost twice that. I think the price on that one will drop before it sells. After we got home and put Isabel down for her nap Bridget took one too, and Kurt and Dan came over to work on our wireless network project. I got the cantenna finished up, but not tested yet. I need a Red hat boot floppy to load Linux on my server, need to get it routing, and then test the wireless components. We also went over to Dan and Kurts and looked at their attic and I gave them a list of electrical stuff to buy since we need to install an outlet and switch to provide power for the base station that will be in their attic. Friday, April 19, 2002
Ugh. For the first of I am sure many times, I've caught a cold from my daughter, something she brought home from a play group. Blegh. Tuesday, April 16, 2002
Crickey, a lot of things to blab about this morning.
Oh Booo hooo hoo! Oh Booo hooo HOOOO hooo hooo! Yesterday they released the first leg of the Rush tour and none of the locations are in the Pacific Northwest. Hopefully they'll catch us on the second part of the tour like last time. My brother won't be back in Elbowquirkey, NM until Aug 26th, five days after that concert, so that's no good. I may or may not go to Denver this summer to show off the great-grandbabies to my grandparents, and to visit Bridget's best friend who is also having a baby, but no Denver tour dates. That red rock outdoor amphitheater outside Denver would be AWESOME to see 'em in, sigh. In other cool news, one of the first things I thought of after seeing Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, besides how completely betrayed I was by Lucas, was that CGI technology had *finally* gotten to the point where you could make Edgar Rice Burrough's book 'A Princess of Mars' into a decent movie. It'd cost a lot, and I have no idea who you'd want to cast as the protagonist John Carter, but I humourly thought of a buffed-out Noah Wyle, who already plays John Carter on E.R. :) Anyway, CNN reports that Paramount has started securing the rights. Unfortunately, I figure they'll butcher it. Sigh.
I RULE!
...and I'm a fool. heh. SMP! All the geeks out there think of Symmetric Multi-Processing, but I think of Severe Meat Poisoning! Uggga. Last night was the 2nd annual Brother-In-Law rib-eating contest. My brother-in-law Kyle is tall, skinny, and 26 going on 12. He's the only adult I know who still likes to play SlugBug. Our not-brother-in-law Bill was the new contestant. He's my sister-in-law Judy's boyfriend. Shorter, heftier, also 26. The venue was Tony Romas, all-the-meat-you-can-rend-from-a-bone-with-yer-teeth ribs. Last year I won, 36 ribs to Kyle's 32, but it was a close-fought thing. My trick in eating contests I learned from my friend Thom. His advice is simple: "Confidence and flair". When you are down and almost out, dying from the weight in your gut, confidantly pick up the next piece and start chowing like you were just faking before and are still starving. This tends to demoralize an opponent who might have otherwise beaten you. This year wasn't so close fought. Kyle ate 24 ribs. Bill ate 29 ribs. I ate 39 ribs, and was stopped by everyone else wanting to go home. I wasn't even in pain yet. Of course, I am fully laden with a gutload of red meat this morning. Ugga. I think this whole gluttonous experience can be summed up with: None too bright, mind you. Friday, April 12, 2002
This week a bunch of my meatspace friends have their panties in a bunch over this article.
Basically, a deaf lesbian couple found a deaf guy to donate sperm for them so they'd have another deaf baby. Crickey, my friends think this is fucked up and cruel. To them, I say pshaw. (I love saying pshaw) I mean, is it so wrong to want a baby like yourself? It's not like being deaf is the end of the world. The kid won't mind a bit, and for that matter, odds are by the time a kid today is an adult they'll be able to fix deafness anyway. They were bent that someone would *deliberately* try to create a deaf child by seeking out a deaf sperm donor. I think the whole issue is homophobia, since the story wouldn't have made the news if it was a deaf hetero couple. Deaf hetero couples have deaf babies all the freakin' time, nobody cares. Thursday, April 11, 2002
I hired a new student helper yesterday, he starts this morning. I'm going to be busy for the next few weeks bringing him up to speed before I take my paternity leave. He seems like a nice sharp kid, this should be fun. He's the seventh student I've hired since taking over here, and so far they've all worked out well. It's a lot of fun working with 20 year old kids. Crickey, they weren't even born when Star Wars came out, or even when Mt. St. Helens blew up and covered the state in ash. It's funny how different a perspective they have. Wednesday, April 10, 2002
I took Isabel to her new tot's swim lessons last night. Before Bridget paid like $100 for 8 lessons at the Elks pool during the day. That class had like five moms and babies in it, all between six months and two years, and the water was WARM. However, for an evening class I got signed up at the local community center pool (Meadowbrook). It was like $35 for 12 sessions. There are 25 parents and babies, ranging up to 4 years old, and the water is much cooler. You definately get what you pay for.
In the women's locker rooms there is a baby changing table, no such item in the men's locker room. At the Elks there was even a playpen in the women's locker room to stash your baby while you change. I got to hold a squirmy 10-month-old in one arm while trying to get dressed. Isabel totally loves the water, however. She doesn't like trying to float on her back, but she loves splashing and playing with stuff. She's such a great baby. Tuesday, April 09, 2002
Happy birthday to me!
Happy birthday to me! Happy biiiiiiiirrrrrrrrrrrrrrthdaaaaaaaay toooOOOOoooo meeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEeeeeEEE!!! Happy birthday to me! :) (just imagine bagpipes wailing, heh) Alright, so I can't sing. I can be happy, however. Bridget made me a tasty 3-layer german chocolate cake, she's bringing it to my office after lunch today where we'll have a little party. Back under the old administrator, the office bought cakes for any admin staff's birthday, which resulted in a ton of birthday parties and cake, but the new admin figured that wasn't a good use of money since it wasn't fair to all the non-admin staff plus it ends up being a bunch of money. She's probably right. Now if you want you can bring your own cake. I'm about the only one who still does. Humbaba tried to pass the 4th circle test again last night. He got his ass kicked hard. :( He got the Greater Wraith but got gang-raped by the Fury and the Green Noid. He normally gets the GW and Fury and dies against the Noid. Sooner or later. Three free ranks will help, he was in the library during the Time of Troubles so it appears he gets to double-dip. Last night I finished a book I started on Saturday. John Ringo's 'A Hymn Before Battle'. They call it military SF, but it definately fits into my personal category of "Human, Human Uber Alles". The Human Human Uber Alles category is one where the author makes the assumption that humans are the baddest asses in the universe. All normal species have to solve their agressive ways on their way to becoming starfaring species, but humans are both nasty fighters and clever about making nasty weapons etc. This book fits right into that mold, where the local area is about 200 planets of sentient species that are all pacifists, being attacked by some Horde of nearly mindless fighters with a few intelligent leaders. They have to recruit year-2000 Humans to do their fighting for them. Yawn. It's hard to pull off a good HHUA book, cuz the premise is a tough one to back up. Ringo got raves on the back of his book for being the best military SF in years, and while it's obvious he spent a lot of time in-service, it's also obvious his writing is rough. The *science* part of his SF is just plain crappy. There is no reasonable explanation for how these ground battles happen without space battles. The characterizations seem a tad contrived as well, but it is the guy's first novel. My opinion: Enjoyable mind candy. Not nearly as good as the blurbs make it sound. Monday, April 08, 2002
With two of my brothers living just four houses down, we decided to set up a high-speed wireless link between our two houses. My computer room is upstairs, and just barely has a line-of-sight (LOS) to the tip of their chimney.
We purchased a pair of Linksys WAP-11 wireless hubs to handle the signal, and we're building a tin-can waveguide antenna aka Cantenna, to put on a post attached to their chimney, a vantage point 2' above their chimney will give us a perfect LOS to my computer room. The distance is about 140', but the cantenna should boost the signal plenty for our purposes. We still need to get an N-connector for our cantenna, as well as an 8' patch cable to go from the cantenna to the WAP11. Their will be stashed inside their attic, hopefully it won't get too hot up there in the summer. I'm also getting very excited about building a MAME cabinet, I found this web page where they sell adapter from arcade controllers to PCs/Macs, as well as ones from a JAMMA cabinet to a PC so you can re-use the existing tube. Sweet! They're on vacation for the next week, I can't wait to order my parts. Not having to buy a 19" PC tube should definitely bring this project in under the projected budget of $300. It'll rule having an arcade cabinet that can play *any* of the old classics.
Tomorrow is my 34th birthday. To celebrate, on saturday night I invited a bunch of friend to the Irish Emigrant, a local pub. I figured we'd meet upstairs around 7pm, eat some tasty Irish food, drink a lot of guiness, and leave. Bridget's mom was up for the weekend watching Isabel for us. We left around 6:30, since some of my friends are painfully early, and got there around 6:40. Two of my friends were already there. The upstairs was closed due to a "private party".
After a while, we noticed the place was filling up with older women. Very strange. Then a large group of guys in rugby uniforms entered en masse and headed toward the men's room, where they stayed... Stranger and stranger. That men's room was tiny, I dunno how they FIT that many guys in there, let alone would want to be that way... We started making jokes that the live entertainment would be male strippers. From where I was sitting I couldn't see that the stage had "It's Raining Men" in large glitter letters across the back... Finally one of my friends noticed a flyer stating "The Full Monty!" We were SO out of there! Thursday, April 04, 2002
Mmm. Last night Bridget made teriyaki chicken legs and rice for dinner, but instead of adding water to the rice she substituted a can of coconut milk. Mmmm!!
Wednesday, April 03, 2002
Seattle is known for rain. We have long rainy dreary winters, only occasionally getting snow. However, we're pretty freakin' far north, so in December we get 8 hours of day and 16 hours of night. The flip side is we have glorious summers, in June we get 16 hours of daylight.
Today is a glorious spring day, blue sunny skies, and we're past the half-way point so we get more day than night. Soon it'll be time for BBQ season to kick off. Biking to work when it's sunny beats biking to and from work in the dark anyday! We finished up Isabel's room yesterday, she's going to sleep there tonight. I expect some difficulty adjusting her to the new room, but we've gotta get her used to it before #2 come. Soon we'll have one large main baby, and a smaller emergency backup baby. (anyone know where I stole that modified quote from?) Tuesday, April 02, 2002
Blah. April Fools gags on web pages just aren't funny to me anymore. I don't think it is because I've lost my sense of humor, I think it's because I've seen so many of them that it's really hard to come up with something original and funny. Sigh.
Last night my sister-in-law Annie babysat for Isabel so that Bridget and I could go out. We were going to see a movie, but didn't really want to see anything out except Lord of the Rings, and at 3 hours it would be too long for a massively-pregnant Bridget to sit through. We hopped into Goldilocks (my 1971 Olds Vista Cruiser station wagon) and went to north to Alderwood Mall where the closest Babies Backwards-R Us (tm) is, and bought a new crib, crib mattress, and a two-section expansion kit for the Baby Jail (tm). All that fit in the back of Goldilocks just fine. We came back into town and stopped off at a nice pub near Greenlake, the Latona. It's a cute little place, exactly what I'd like to own. Small corner spot, with a large wood bar, mega-high ceilings, some benches and tables, a small kitchen, and stairs going up to a little balcony spot. Great little pub. I had a pint of the Point Defiance IPA, which was excellent, and a pint of Deschutes Black Butte Porter that was on nitrogen. < beer lecture mode on > Most beers on tap are on CO2 (carbon dioxide) systems. CO2 makes large bubbles, and is cheap and easy. A few are on nitrogen (N2) systems, mostly Guiness and other Irish stouts, but there are a few ales like Boddingtons (from UK) and Hale's DPA that are as well. Nitrogen makes very tiny bubbles, which gives Guiness et al their super creamy taste and funky bubble action in the glass. < /beer lecture mode off > This was the first time I'd ever had a porter on N2. It sure made it creamy, but I actually think I prefer the complex flavors of Black Butte porter with just CO2. After we got home we had Indian food delivered, damn tasty. MmmmMMMM! They sure know how to spice things. MMMM! Monday, April 01, 2002
Had a fun weekend. My sister-in-law Annie and her husband Kyle were here, as well as my mother-in-law. I ended up buying Space Balls on DVDVDVDVD, funny movie, but not as funny as I'd remembered.
A few weeks ago I got email from somebody asking a question about the Gyruss arcade game logic board. My Gyruss cabinet has been hosting a Time Pilot board for the past five years, and I'd lost the key to the back in the last move, so I figured I'd have to drill out the lock. However, whenever Kyle is over we play Time Pilot, so I enlisted his help, and we unscrewed a vent cover from the top, and got the back off that way. There were two board sets in the cabinet, but the other one was Lost Tomb, which won't work right until I rig up a second joystick as well as a new wiring harness. So, I figured the long cardboard box that the Time Pilot pcb (printed circuit board, aka logic board or motherboard, aka the brains) had came in. Sure enough, there was my Gyruss board. We plugged it in and turned it on and had a blast! Gyruss is a very fun game, sorta like Galaga or Space Invaders, except you travel around the outside edge firing to the center. *Great* stereo music. I really need to get a Donkey Kong boardset and a Joust, and covert my other cabinet to support them. Back before about 1987, most games used custom cable configs, or a few closely related ones hooked up the same (like DK was the same boardset as DK jr and DK III and Popeye). The cable config is how the power, video, and controls connect to the PCB. Konami had a set of like 30 or 40 games that all used a "konami-style" interface. However, in 1986 or 1987, the JAMMA (Japanese Arcade Machine Manufacturers' Assc) standard emerged, and basically everything after that is JAMMA. This enabled arcade operators to merely swap out PCBs instead of buying new cabinets to upgrade to the current games. My main cabinet is a Konami, and the other one is JAMMA, but it has trackballs instead of joysticks, so I'm more limited in what I can host in it without replacing or upgrading the controls. Other weekend projects included a tasty Easter dinner with a spiral-cut ham.. MMmm! My brother Dan and I worked on pruning a ton of branches from my front yard trees. These two London Plane trees are butchered beyond recognition by prunings in the past because the power lines go right through them. They put the ugh into ugly, but they're still trees and not completely worthless, just butchered. |
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