Joe's PD Hard Cider

4 Gallons Apple Juice / Apple Cider (NO PRESERVATIVES)*
1 Gallon Tap Water
2lbs Dark Brown Sugar
1 lb Crystal 60 Malt (optional but gives a caramel after taste)
1 Packet Safale - 05 yeast/Montrachet Champagne Yeast

Heat 1 gallon of water to 200 F to sterilize. Steep Crystal 60 @ 170F for 30 minutes in a mesh bag or cheesecloth. After the Crystal steep, discard the mesh bag and heat water to 200F again, slowly stirring in the Brown Sugar until disolved and water has reached 200F. DO NOT BOIL.

While the water/sugar/malt mixture is cooling to 70-75F, pour into your fermenter ( I used a 6.5 gallon ferment bucket with a 3 piece airlock) the apple juice. At this point, if you are using pasteurized juice/cider, there is no reason to boil or further sanitize the juice, it is essentially sterile in the jug. Once you have the juice in the fermenter and the water mixture is cooled to the proper temperature, pour the water mixture into the fermenter and pitch your yeast.

Fermentation should be very active within 48 hours. Ferment temperature should be 60-65F with the Safale - 05 and 65-75F with the Montrachet.

*Fermentation time with the Safale - 05 should take about 4 weeks for the yeast cake to settle. The Montrachet being a champagne yeast will ferment a bit quicker, about 2.5 weeks or less.

Starting Gravity should be 1.074, Final Gravity should be 0.996, yielding around 9.8% alcohol.
If you choose to leave out the Crystal 60 Malt, SG will be 1.060 and FG will be 0.998, yielding around 8.2% alcohol.

After carbonating for about 5 days, this was very drinkable and was a spot on match for Strongbow, the English cider. After about 1 week post-chilling (about 2 weeks post-bottling), the taste continued to become more complex, yielding some cinnamon esters (most likely from the Safale - 05 yeast, it has been known to cause a cinnamon like flavor in ales) and lots of caramel frontnotes and nose. At 4 weeks post-chilling, astringent quality of the cider (which is normal for this style) had mellowed to a very drinkable cider that closely resembled a sparkling dry white wine, with hints of strawberry, apple, cinnamon and caramel.

*A note about preservatives: Preservatives can keep your yeast from reproducing, and unless you introduce a very LARGE yeast cake or use a HUGE starter, your cider will never fully ferment. Watch out for Potassium Sorbate or basically anything other than juice in the ingredient list. Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C) is fine and the yeast seem to love it, just make sure to let your guests know that there is a fair amount of Vitamin C in your cider, some people are sensitive to this vitamin.

Cheers !

Methyglyn Recipe

13lbs of raw clover honey from ebeehoney.com
1/2 a medium sized ginger root, sliced
spoonful of cinnamon
spoonful of ground cloves
(nutmeg excluded, but recomended)
the Zest and juice from 2 medium grapefruit

2 packets of 71B-1122 Sacchromyces Cerevisiae Narbonne yeast from Lalvin

Boil zest, juice, ginger, and spices in water with small amount of honey, for 20 minutes. Mix in a packet of yeast nutrients, preferably one with added acid to make the honey more palatable to the yeast, or if you dont have any, add more citrus juice. Strain, and dump in previously disinfected fermenting bucket or carboy. Warm the rest of the honey and mix into warm water, heat until all the honey is disolved, but try not to overheat the honey to avoid changing the flavor of the raw honey.

allow to cool in the fermenter, until the mixture reaches room temperature. Once the mixture is cool, dump in your yeast activated in a small amount of water, and seal your container with an airlock.

Ill let you know how it works out.

Magicians use f64

Four Fingered Hands of Fate

Fate draws us into the firm clasp of the future, as, day after day, week by week we become the men we will be, and find the devices that change us into the person who can then look back on what we were, what we are now.


My current roommate, Brian, who was nice enough to invite me to this neck of the woods at exactly the same time i was looking to get out of Mexico, has just recently become a rock star.


Alright, so he isnt really a star, at least not yet, and as he is a bassist, im not sure how much rocking he is actually doing in those three note ditties i always hear him practicing, but the effort is still there, and im sure you could say he is living the dream. I wont, of course, but i cant really stop you, can i? The band is called The Sammus Theory if you want to check it out, or feel free to catch them on Last Call with Carson Daly on April 18th,

I think Daly is still on NBC, i honestly had no idea that particular show hadnt died off years ago, so im sure you know more than me.
TV is Teh Suck.

One of the prerequisites for being a rock star is that you own musical instruments, which you know how to play. I also think that is the only prerequisite there is to becoming a rock star, now that i think about it, though im sure the choice of instrument does limit your options. (not alot of heavy metal jaw-harpists so far) Brian has long succeeded in both reguards, being a decent guitar player (and by default, a much better than average bass player) and having a remarkable collection of interesting guitars, basses, and midisynth electro-babble. Unfortunately, this is not that kind of band i guess. Did i mention the three notes? Not that its bad, its not, it just doesnt yet require a superaxe with a thousand dollar synth. So Brian, a few weeks ago, sold his super nice looking shiny blue "Im the most strings you can reasonably fit on a bass" guitar, and is now looking at picking up a regular old four string.

Tonight, as chance would have it, he asked me along to peruse the guitar store with him, and i accepted. I was surprised that we went to the store that was so far away from the house, but it turns out another member of the band has an "in" at the not so close store, and so, with the name of the manager in hand, in the interest of a possibly smoking deal, we checked out all the regular ibanez, shecter, and fender basses in a variety of shapes and colours. none particularly suited him, so we wandered aimlessly looking at things we either didnt want (stonewashed guitars) or couldnt afford. (10k, and its way prettier than your car)






Thats when we saw IT.







Hanging up like some tethered demon artifact from the future, was the strangest, most powerful bass i have ever seen.

Closer examination revealed the source of these powers.

Sitting before us, hidden in a darkened corner behind one of the clerk counters was a five string monster with a scalloped fretboard over a double trussed neck with a full length concave thumb groove running the length of its full neck through body design

Aluminum fingerboard inlays accented the edge design, combined with a multi-wood layering on the recessed body. The body had been shaved down to a remarkable thinness and then built back up in some demonic, but ergonomic, shape.

All this culminated in the wood inlay imagery on the reverse, laminate neck exploding into a japanese sun type motif. (or arizona flag, or exploding splinters, you decide, thats why there are pictures, and not just my shitty description)

Once it was plugged in, it immediately spewed forth its demonic force in a deep and sharply overdriven growl. The thing was just made to be distorted, it seems, and had a very powerful tone.

It seems this is a custom job from someone called Rhino Customs, traded in by a former employee, who bought it used from another guitar store or something like that, and it was nothing less than impressive. This is the kind of guitar that separates the men from the boys, the type of bass that shakes loose all the bad apples and blows away every sort of pretense as it proceeds to rock you to the core. This is the axe that makes rockstars and legends, The Red Violin of the electric age, you could just tell that it had endless stories it wasnt willing to share, a dark history you wouldnt want to hear. It was the four string Devils Trumpet, the musical version of Prince Adam's Sword of Power rolled into the personality of a Battle Cat. This was the kind of guitar no one ever forgets, and everyone wants.

So? did he buy it? Did he buy the single greatest guitar ever made, that had been placed just within his reach by a remarkable chain of events and chance?

Nah...

He said it was the price tag, (almost 2,000$) but honestly, i think he was a little afraid. Maybe he isnt sure of himself, maybe he isnt sure if he really wants to stand out from the crowd, maybe he isnt ready to seize his destiny and become the legend that fate, in all of its chains of circumstance, demands of him. 2k isnt alot for a custom guitar, and less than he has spent on lesser things in life than perfection, and im pretty sure, this wooden idol was indeed perfect. He said he will think about it, and if you think he should indeed man up, you should email him at iamunsung%hotmail and tell him so. We all know that when you walk out of the store, the odds of ever going back for that item are next to zero, so i think perhaps fate will have to find a new champion, a hero for its new golden age...

I, myself, hope it does.

And me, you might ask, why didnt i buy it? While its true i did once play a bit o bass, that was years ago and i never really wanted to be a rockstar. To tell you the truth, i always thought rockstars were all pussys when it came down to it.

I guess this proves it. ;)

Run on, fist of fate, and may you soon find the heart of those willing to accept either your designs or your opportunities.

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Richopinochet

Pinochet is dead, this is true
but before you go dancing off
take a good close look at you
eating out of this wealthy trough
paying taxes, taking classes
in telling the world what to do
Pinochet finaly said what all we knew
"I did it, i killed them all, its true"
But what he did not say, is who
paid him, or who asked him to.
Mamita Yunay is not here today
sold away it seems, like many dreams
but still dont ask about the C-I-A
That nine-eleven wasnt how it seems
Chuck Horman is deep in the ground
Operation Condor now rests its wings
and Michael Townley is not around
The game is played with other things
And every american stands proud
"Responsibility" or so spoke Pinochet
But i ask you, Where is ours today?
Things change, do they in the end?
It is still a dangerous game they play
With these taxxes you, my friend

Still, So faithfully pay.







Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte (November 25, 1915 - December 10, 2006)

"It is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup .... it is imperative that these actions be implemented clandestinely and securely so that the USG (United States government) and American hand be well hidden." --Released CIA memo stemming from Nixons Sept 1970 order to Henry Kissenger that he bring about the fall of Allende's democraticly elected government in Chile.

The coup d'état was enacted three years later on September 11, 1973, with Pinochet placed at the helm. The next years in Chile were quite dark, with between three and thirty thousand peoples executed and at least thirty thousand tortured at the hands of his CIA backed secret police and inteligence network.

Pinochet died of a heart attack at the age of 91 in a military hospital in Chile, surounded by his family. He was not given a state funeral. He leaves behind several children, a country that isnt quite sure of what to make of him, and more than a handfull of former concentration camps. Among them is the National Stadium in Santiago, Chile, where, among 40,000 other political prisoners, american journalists Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi were held and later executed with the knowledge and complicity of the US State Department. The stadium is still open for a number of sporting and political events, and can be visited by the public.

I've always wondered why exactly Mexico has been so low on the world totem pole when it is so close to the economic Eagle Head of the United States. Its a mystery to me, not the why, which i am certain is through continuing market control from large european and american corporations, but the how, the mechanism of control. Simular control was attempted by europe against the united states in its infancy, but could not be maintained in face of such economic advantaged afforded by the US's position. A position that Mexico is very close to, and yet so far away.

So close, in fact, that the political left's great quotemaker, Hugo Chavez, has been heard to say "Poor Mexico, so far from heaven, and so close to the devil"

Chavez won the recent election in Venezuela, and shows no sign of letting his reign there end, as he continues to make great soundbites, and not much else for the people of his country, unless you consider the threats passed down at the government owned industries (including the all important petroleum industry) that "government dissenters", those who would vote against Chavez's re-election, would have no place in their jobs, or perhaps the country.

Mexico, as the rest of the world with a few exceptions, seems to have little interest in Chavez's moderate socialism, or whatever they are calling it these days, other than these phenominal anti-US quotes popularized in the media worldwide. Everyone, it seems, even if they cant explain it, holds the popular opinion that the United States is responsible for almost all of the economic problems in Mexico. (and elsewhere) Some do explain it, either by the persecution of people who want to work on both sides of the border, the economic redistribution and concentration of wealth brought about by NAFTA, the "disappearances" claimed to be perpetrated by Border Patrol, the impending wall, stories of illegal weapon testing on Mexican fields... the list goes on.

Some of these stories have merit, as I learned talking with a rural farmer who cant get a visa to take a truckload of tomatoes to a buyer waiting in Texas. There isn't any reason for his visa application to be denied, as he meets all the requirements for someone wanting to do business in the united states, but his name came up on some list somewhere, or something, and it was denied. Now he considers selling his crop for considerably less in Mexico, or paying 1000$us to an official who offered to get him less than legal papers, papers that would get him across the border, but could get him sent to a detention cell once he is across. Ive heard that his story is not uncommon here.

Really though, the actions of the United States has little effect on day to day trade here, and the wages paid by US manufacturing companies who relocated plants to Mexico in the face of NAFTA is low, but only because its comparable (generally higher) to the wages paid by local companies. I continued to look for an answer to why Mexico, with its vast mineral, land, sea and human resources has never reached the level of prosperity, if not felt by the general populous in the United States, is always believed to be possible. Mexico, since the 50's really, in many places, seems without hope, and i could figure out why, until it was explained to me by a local college student. "Mexico suffers from a hundred years of state run public education designed to divide its people." she claimed that while she was taught about ancient Mexican culture, its status and symbols, and the Spanish conquest, she was only taught about it in Spanish, while more rural areas are often taught only in the Nahuatl or Mayan languages, and are either expected to never leave their communities, or to learn Spanish on their own time.

Divisions seem rampant, It seems as if there are no real Mexican national movements, because there is no Mexican national identity, In the south of Mexico, where the majority of the population is indigenous peoples, there is a denial of that perceived cultural inferiority, and people want to be seen as the brave and noble Hispanics who defeated the brutal indians. In Central Mexico, with its capital, and a primarily Hispanic population, people want to be seen as having the great honor and a noble spirit of an indegenous linage. In northern Mexico, which is even more Hispanic in origin, the people just want to be powerful and prosperous, like the Gringos.

This type of division has in the past resulted in a democratic system that is sometimes described as being practicaly autonomous in the fact that the only people who bother to vote for its leaders, are people involved in the political machine.

I state again:
A united people, with common interests, are the people most likely to achieve active prosperity.