10 drinkable varieties and counting...

Crackberry... The only way to fly.

Booboo and mischief

Crackberry... The only way to fly.

Sony retires the cassette Walkman after 30 years - CNN.com

I don't know what is scarier...

The thought that Sony is finally retiring cassette players, only about 10 years after they became obsolete. When was the last time YOU actually listened to a cassette? I haven't in at least 10 years. I replaced all mine with CDs in the mid-90's. Heck, I haven't popped a CD in a player in at least 4 years, they're all converted to MP3 now.

-or-

The thought that enough people still listen to audio cassettes that Sony actually still manufacturers players for them.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/gaming.gadgets/10/25/sony.retires.walkman.mashab...

The kitties

Crackberry... The only way to fly.

The new kittens

Crackberry... The only way to fly.

Sometimes it was just meant to be

This morning we got word from the vet that Tigger didn't make it through the night. Today around 4:30 I learn that one of my coworkers' friends has two 9 week old kittens and needs to find them a home. So tonight we find ourselves with 2 9 week old grey & white kittens. Pictures to follow when I can get some.

RIP Tigger

We took our 8 month old cat in to be neutered and de-clawed yesterday. He died in the middle of the night... This isn't how I wanted to start my day.

ScientificAmerican.com: Can You Hear Me Now? The Truth about Cell Phones and Cancer

Hmm... makes me think there is something to this.

By Michael Shermer
Physics shows that cell phones cannot cause cancer

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=can-you-hear-me-now

Grumble...

Sunday I broke my hydrometer. Ok, no big deal. Tonight I went to make my pear wine and remembered I broke the hydrometer. Now I need to get another one and fast because I have 36lb of pears that will go bad in a relatively short period if I don't get the wine going real soon. It'll take till Friday to get a replacement and the nearest store is well over an hours drive away. I hppe I can get it before things go bad. Worst case scenario is I start the wine and guess on the sugar (guess on the light side) and when I get it in, adjust the mash accordingly. Ugh!

My next project

I need to make a fruit press to get the last bits of the good stuff our of my fruit after fermenting it. :)

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/homemade-cider-press-146517/

I love my work...

Tonight I bottled 5 of my wines, and I have to say that they all came out quite nicely.

Pumpkin: While the flavor is subtle, it is there. I'm not sure if the flavor is because of the buckwheat honey I used or not, but it's a keeper. I think I'll make another gallon or two for next year.

Bananas with cocoa: This one came out excellent! I plan to convert 4 gallons of the second banana batch I made into this and see if I can duplicate this on a larger scale.

Plum: This came out a bit on the tart side, but rather than sweeten it up, I decided to try it with some chocolate. Wow, is this stuff good with chocolate! We have another winner. :)

Honeysuckle: What can I say? Come spring, I will be hunting down every flowering honeysuckle in a day or 2 within driving distance and hope I can find enough flowering vines to make a 6 gallon batch of the stuff. :)

Pineapple & orange: This is more of a Pineapple, but it is still quite tasty. The pineapple overpowered the orange, but you can taste the influence of the orange in it.

Perfect night

What could be more perfect than watching cartoons and eating popcorn with the kids?
Crackberry... The only way to fly.

I like this!

Homemade space craft hits 100,000 feet (19 miles)

This is well worth watching!

http://www.brooklynspaceprogram.org/BSP/Space_Balloon.html

A different take on Christianity...

Christianity: The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree. Makes perfect sense.

Where we had dinner last night.

Crackberry... The only way to fly.

Gizmo

Crackberry... The only way to fly.

Tigger sleeping

Crackberry... The only way to fly.

apple & brown sugar sparkling wine???

Ok, so I cracked one of the bottles of apple & brown sugar and there was a noticeable pop. If I hadn't been using a big corkscrew, the cork would have ended up on the other end of the room i'm sure. I definitely made sparkling wine, the real question is how??? The wine sat with no signs of bubbles for about 2 months before I bottled this stuff, yet it clearly re-started fermentation once I bottled it. About 2 weeks ago I blew a cork in one of the smaller bottles of the wine, so I know this bottle is not a one-off.