Beer... Enough said!

Do you want to learn to cook like the great chefs?

2010-09-28T15:05:00.007-05:00

Restaurant chains want to kill this guy (no not literally)!

Sales have been slowing at national restaurant chains like Red Lobster, TGI Fridays, and the Cheesecake Factory recently due to the increase in gas prices.

To make matters worse, more and more people are discovering that they can save money by making their favorite restaurant dishes at home following the step by step instructions of Master Chef Ron Douglas.

The so called "secret recipes" of these billion dollar restaurants have now been exposed and shared with the world in the cooking instructional guide "America's Secret Recipes."

For details, go to:

Douglas is facing major pressure to take down his site and discontinue all sales of his secret recipe cookbooks. But he continues to thumb his nose at the greedy restaurant executives in support of the budget constrained home cook.

Anyone looking to duplicate their favorite restaurant recipes should pick up "America's Secret Recipes" now before it's forced off the market. Go to:

Finally you can:

- Stop waiting on those long lines at restaurants to pay for dishes you can quickly make in your own kitchen!

- Re-create your favorite restaurant dishes at home for a fraction of the cost by following these easy step-by-step instructions.

- Get kudos and praise from friends and family members when they find out you actually made these delicious dishes yourself!

- Uncover the cooking techniques used by world class chefs from famous restaurants.

Discover the secrets to making your favorite restaurant recipes at home - go to:

Sena SMH10 Bluetooth Headset for motorcycle helmets

2010-09-25T23:35:00.002-05:00

Ok, so I had to write about this. I just recently (with a friend of mine) purchased the Sena SMH10 headset from www.mrhit.com. This is a bluetooth headset for motorcycle helmets. I was using a Blueant Interphone (not the interphone F1 but the original interphone) that I purchased off craigslist.

The Blueant only does bike to bike and cell phone communication while the Sena does bike to bike as well as ANY bluetooth (Cell, GPS, MP3, etc...) and is stereo (the interphone is mono). I was initially looking at getting the Cardo (either the Scala Q2, or the Scala G4) but after reading some reviews about the SMH10's I thought I'd go with the Sena. Sena is mostly a company dealing in bluetooth for the corporate sector and not everyday users like me.

My first concern was buying from www.mrhit.com. I don't really buy a lot of things online but I found his ad on craigslist and noticed that he was actually a local company (he operates out of Arlington, TX and I live in Dallas). So I called him to see if I could just come to his warehouse and buy this headset but he told me that he only sales either through PayPal or Google checkout.

This concerned me as it seemed odd that he wouldn't take my cash in person and wanted me to buy online. I tried to do some research on him and didn't find much but what I did find was favorable so I went ahead and took the plunge. Also the other reason I wanted to buy from him was he was absolutely the CHEAPEST person selling these headsets! I got 1 pair of them for $259.99! (The scala g4's run $279.00 a piece and the Scala q2's run $215.00 a piece!) I had also read some reviews (check out this one: http://www.webbikeworld.com/motorcycle-intercoms/sena-smh10-intercom/ and this one: http://www.webbikeworld.com/motorcycle-intercoms/sena-smh10-intercom/sena-smh10-part-2.htm) about the Sena's and it sounded like they were the best on the market.

I won't go to much into detail as the reviews I posted above do a better job, but let me say WOW these things have been amazing! I ride my 1998 Honda Magna Vf750C everyday (it's my sole source of transportation). But I also ride about 250-400 miles a weekend! It's really nice to be able to talk with another rider (my friend has them installed in a Shoei Multitech Helmet while I have them installed in a Scorpion EXO 1000). And when I don't ride with someone who has one (you can have up to 4 bikes connected bluetooth with these helmets), I can listen to the music on my phone in stereo!

All in all, these headset have been stellar and www.mrhit.com got them to me the next day! (Yes I know I live local but still I heard of people much further away getting them the next day).

If you ride a motocycle, you HAVE to get these! It makes the ride so much better!

Resident Evil 5

2009-10-12T19:58:00.003-05:00

Ok. So I got the new resident evil 5 for the pc. Boy, Talk about a waste... First let me say, I'm not a big fan of third person shooters (which this is actually considered over the shoulder). I think games such as this should be in the first person. Not only does it make more sense, but the game becomes way more fun as your movements are much more natural. But, I'm not totally counting off for that because I'm a huge fan of assasin's creed which is totally third person. I like the difficulty of the gameplay in resident evil 5, but what I don't like is the way your partner walks right in front of you as your fighting the undead (ESPECIALLY if you have partner reaction on). Now some might consider this more realistic, but honestly, she steps right in the front of you the moment you start fighting an enemy. Ok, so I know what you're saying. Turn off the partner reaction (which I did). Still doesn't help with the fact that she seems to stay right in front of you and you can't see your enemies very well.

With that said, you'd think that if I shot an enemy in the head, he'd be dead. Right? Well sometimes. Every once in a while when I shoot one of the undead in the head, their head explodes, while most times it doesn't. I really don't like it when games don't have consistency... I am just starting the game honestly and I already have to fight a humongous (sp.) amount of enemies (and one really big ugly one). Seems kinda soon to be all out to me? I love a challange, but if this was going to be a kill fest, don't make it uber hard at the beginning of the game where I have to play a part over and over. Makes me not want to continue the game. All in all, this is not a good game, but to be fair I only just started playing and it might get better. I'll play a little longer and see if it grows on me, but I don't have any high hopes.

Torture

2009-05-26T23:35:00.004-05:00

I was just watching a Senator John Cornyn video on waterboarding and it got me to thinking. What does the Geneva Convention say about torture? Isn't torture illegal according to the Convention? Well here's the first 2 articles:

Article 1

The High Contracting Parties undertake to respect and to ensure respect for the present Convention in all circumstances.

Article 2

In addition to the provisions which shall be implemented in peace time, the present Convention shall apply to all cases of declared war or of any other armed conflict which may arise between two or more of the High Contracting Parties, even if the state of war is not recognized by one of them.

The Convention shall also apply to all cases of partial or total occupation of the territory of a High Contracting Party, even if the said occupation meets with no armed resistance.

Although one of the Powers in conflict may not be a party to the present Convention, the Powers who are parties thereto shall remain bound by it in their mutual relations. They shall furthermore be bound by the Convention in relation to the said Power, if the latter accepts and applies the provisions thereof.

I think the key sentence is that in the last paragraph of article 2: "...if the latter accepts and applies the provisions thereof." If one of the parties in the conflict (war, action, etc...) is not of a high contracting party, and doesn't hold to or accept the Geneva Convention, then we are not bound by it either if we choose not to be. Now we could be the bigger person and say that we are and not use what some people call "torture". Right... Uh huh... They cut peoples heads off (no funny references to dumb and dumber intended)! They hold to no rules. How the heck can you fight a war with people who don't hold to your rules? that'd be like a boxing match where one person can hit in the nuts, but the other can't. That ludicrist. What we do is "waterboarding". Now I'll be honest, I've never had waterboarding done on me. I don't know anyone who has had it done to them, and I'm sure no one would like it done to them. But let's get real. There is no permanent damage. It's used as a scare tactic more than anything else.

Now the questions becomes, "Does this give us credible information?" I can't say that I know the answer to that question. But what I do know is that if we do nothing, we get nothing! I'd rather try something and at least stand a chance of getting credible information than to do nothing knowing I won't get any information. I'm not suggesting we beat people up, or coerce them. I'm suggesting we do something other than just sit around and wait for them to attack us again!

check out this game!

2008-12-13T20:37:00.001-06:00

Make a game | Share | Free games | Pictogame

Been busy

2008-11-01T14:35:00.003-05:00

Haven't blogged in a while. Just been really busy and my computer has been acting up again. Seems now the power button on my monitor is broke, so I cannot turn off my monitor or I risk not being able to turn it back on again! I certainly don't want to by a new 24 IN. widescreen, This one dell is great! Seems like you buy the expensive stuff and it just craps out on you! Really most of my problems have been video driver related. Nvidia has really dropped the ball on the drivers for vista. (I really want to use vista because of the Direct X 10). I spent about $3k on this setup (watercooled cpu and video card as well as sli setup and raptor drive). But I have had nothing but problems with the video on this thing. One of the cards plays my games just fine but shuts down sometimes when videos are played while the other plays my video just fine but shuts down when games are played! I can't use them together except for watching videos (and even then it might crap out on me!). I really prefer to build my own computers as I can use exactly what I want, but who knows, Maybe next time I'll just buy it prebuilt!

I brewed a new beer

2008-10-13T16:27:00.004-05:00

Alright, so I brewed a new beer about 4 weeks ago. It's a nice and bold 7% West Coast IPA and I gotta say, this is my best brew to date. Mind you, I've only brewed 4 beers (this being the 4th). I tasted this one through out the entire process (when it went into the secondary fermenter, when I bottled the beer, 3 days after being in the bottle and a week later.) Seems to me that beer the had it's best flavor after about 3 days in the bottle. This is quite the hoppy beer (or it was supposed to be) The hop aroma and flavor really showed themselves on day 3. I am drinking one now and the aroma has really died down although the flavor is still there.

I honestly think this beer is a little better being toned down, but next time I'm going to ramp up the hops in the boil and the dry hopping. This uses cascade, and amarillo hops. I really like the cascades as they tend to impart a grapefruit aroma and flavor to the beer which really makes the ipa's stand out for me. The amarillo has a higher alpha acid so it imparts a lot more aroma than the cascade and that aroma is more grassy/piney. I think for my next brew I am going to do a Baltic Porter. This will be a very robust 8 % abv beer with lots of chocolate and toffe flavors.

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Going blonde

2008-10-12T18:50:00.002-05:00

I was talking to a really good friend of mine a week or so ago and we were talking about the fact that my hair has blonde highlights in it (my hair is red). She asked me if I ever thought about going all blonde. So... I think I'm going to take the plunge! She is a hairstylist at sport clips and really did a good job cutting my hair so I'm going to let her do the coloring. I gotta tell you though, It is really making me nervous as I've never done this before (only highlights but they were pretty extreme). If I don't like it, I'll be stuck with it for quite a while! Plus, I just started growing my goatee again. Will I have to color that? If I don't, it might look really weird to have a red goatee and blonde hair! I might just shave the goatee off. They really are a pain to keep up with and I haven't had one in about 4 years. I just finished a contract job with Baylor hospital and I'm on the job hunt again. Not quite sure if going blonde would be a bad thing but I don't think that it would. Oh well... I guess we're gonna find out!

Aliph Jawbone vs Blueant V1

2008-06-12T15:06:00.017-05:00

Aliph Jawbone

I just recently bought an Aliph jawbone. I had seen many reviews about this headset and they were all really positive. I thought this would be the best headset for me to buy. Boy was I wrong! Although the noise cancellation technology was very good; no matter what kind of noise was around me, the people could clearly understand me (even when I was standing next to the loud motor of a bus). But that is pretty much where the positives ended for me. here is a list of the things that are negatives:

1. The headset feels like it's going to fall off most of the time
2. The people you're talking to sound like they are in a tin can
3. the auto adjust volume doesn't really work all that well
4. you don't get the ability to adjust the volume (actually you kinda can by clicking the noise cancellation button it cycles though 6 levels of volume and you can only go up, not down so you have have to cycle until your back at 1).

I had kept this headset four about a week and did some fresh research on the Blueant V1 and read a lot of really great reviews about it (specifically when compared to a jawbone) so I decided to return the jawbone and get the V1.

Blueant V1

The Blueant V1 is absolutely amazing! This headset also comes with voice cancellation technology. The sound off your caller is really stellar for a bluetooth headset, the noise cancellation works great and it uses voice commands to control everything. Initial charging the unit took about 2 hours (maybe even a little less) compared to the jawbones 3 1/2 hours. When you first turn the unit on, the blueant walks you through pairing the device by the voice talking through the headset, which was really cool! after being connected, you can press the blue ant button(BAB) on the top of the bluetooth and it will ask you to say a command. So let's say you want to know how much batter juice is left in the headset. Pres the BAB and say "check battery" and it will tell you how charged your batter is! Here's a list of the positives:

1. Voice commands to operate the unit are really cool and useful.
2. Sound quality is great!
3. Noise cancellation technology works great.
4. fits very snug on the ear.
5. comes with comfy gels so you can wear the unit without the ear loop (although I prefer the loop as I just don't like taking the chance it will fall out no matter how snug it feels).

Conclusion

As you can see the Blueant V1 is by far the best bluetooth headset on the market! Yeah It may cost around $100 like the Jawbone (except on newegg where you can find it for $67.00) but let me tell you it is worth it! You'll never again have your caller going: "huh? what did you say" and you won't have to worry whether or not you'll here them good as this thing is quite loud (you might even have to turn it down). Don't wait, go to your nearest retailer (or e-tailer) and get this thing now!

Metallica

2008-06-12T14:57:00.003-05:00

Well, it seems like metallica is at it again! I read this article and it totally reminded me of the napster/metallica thing that happend some years back. Seems they invited some bloggers to come to their studio, listen to their music and write some blogs about it. Then after the blogs were written (and they were favorable!), their manager told them to remove the reviews or face legal action! At one point these guys used to be somewhat good and creative, now they just churn out records like drones and alienate all the fans by doing stuff like this!

Shopping Essentials

2008-06-05T17:22:00.003-05:00

And there's more! I signed up with what I figured to be a reputable website (www.classmates.com). I signed up for 4 months to see if there were enough people on it to make it worth my while. All of a sudden after 2 months I notice this charge on my bank account for $19.95 from a company called "shopping essentials". I contacted them and asked what this charge was for and they told me I had entered my email and "opted-in" to the service through www.classmates.com. I know this is not the case as I have been doing web development/design and implementation since 1997 and I know (or at least thought I knew) all the tricks people try to do to scam you. Shopping Essentials actually had billed me 2 months but I didn't catch the first month. Well, The "supervisor" that I talked with assured me that she'd refund my money and close the account. This was april 15th. On may the 15th, I get another $19.95 charge from this company. Now I am livid so I call them back and told them that they needed to refund this money as well and if they did not, I'd sue the pants off them! While on the phone with them, I noticed ANOTHER $19.95 charge for march as well that I had missed! She wasn't going to refund that, she was just going to refund the ones I had mentioned (despite the fact that I said I want all my money back). I had to litteraly tell her each specific incident I wanted refunded! Just do an internet search for them and you'll see that this has happened to lot's people! The sites that help them do this are: classmates.com, restraunts.com, and vistaprint.com. Under NO circumstances should you patronize these sites or give them any of your banking or credit card information!

Butterfly Reports

2008-06-05T17:11:00.003-05:00

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, but I've been super busy. It's time for me to rant a little as this really pisses me off! A couple of months ago I signed up with a website: www.butterflyreports.com. When I signed up (which only cost me a dollar) I was told that if I wanted to, I could upgrade my membership to the gold level for only $16 per month if I did so right then, but if I waited to upgrade I'd have to pay $29.95 a month. The key here is that I'D have to upgrade. Well, I decided to wait and see if this was something I wanted to do; check it out first. It was not something I felt our company could benefit from so I chose not to upgrade. Well, I forgot about it and lo and behold they automatically upgraded me and charged my bank account for $29.95! This caused an overdraft of that account also accruing me a $35 overdraft fee! I contacted them and they told me that I agreed to be upgraded (which I did not) but said they'd refund my money. That was 3 weeks ago and I STILL have yet to get anything from them. This is a VERY disreputable company and it really makes me mad that they have done this to me. We have had numerous communications with no success. I guess I'll just have to take legal action against them.

Beer Tasting...

2008-05-26T08:24:00.003-05:00

I want to give a big shout out and thanks to Bu11zeye over at ratebeer.com for hosting a small gathering and sharing some great beers from his enormous 1500 beer collection! We did not have a bad beer in the bunch. He has a get together every Tuesday at his house from 5-7 (or until they feel really good!) It's hard for me to go as I work about an hour or more from his house! All in all we sampled 9 beers (one being a 14%er): Haley's rudyards barleywine rare 02, harviestoun ola dubh, Old Stock Ale Cellar 2005 *14%), Oude Gueze De Oude Cam, Port Brewing 2nd anniversary ale. The Physics Laid Back Amber, Captain Lawrence Brewing Smoke from the Oak, De Dolle Bos Keun, and Full Sails Imperial Stout. They were all fabulous beers. We're going to try and set up a big tasting in june and hopefully rent a suite or something to host it at. Can't wait! I am ready to try some more good stuff!

Cultivating yeast from a Westvleteren

2008-05-23T14:30:00.004-05:00

So after doing some thinking about it, I'd like to try cultivating the yeast from a bottle of Westvleteren, if I can still get my hands on one from my friend. I know it won't be easy to do and it may not even be the yeast that they ferment with, but from my research, I'm pretty sure it is. Not that it will make my beer as good as theirs, but it at least gives me a good starting point! I can continue to cultivate the yeast and continue to tweak the beer as I make more of it. The only hard part about brewing a Trappist beer (or abbey style ale) is, they have to stay in the bottles for at least 6 months before they are ready to drink! It's really hard to wait that long for your own homebrew! Although, on the plus side, You let this beer stay in the bottle for a couple of years or more and you will have one of the finest (if not the best) brews you ever made! Of course this all depends on whether or not my friend still has any bottles left. Cross your fingers!

Hop shortage

2008-05-22T11:08:00.002-05:00

I tell people I am a hophead and they look at me like I'm crazy. What the heck is a hophead? Well, simply put, it is someone with a passion for beers with lots of hops in them. Hops are the wonderful flowers that add bitterness to our beer. If beer didn't have hops in it, it would be a really sweet alcoholic beverage. We use hops not only to flavor the beer but also to give it aroma. Right now the world is going through an extreme hop shortage which is why the prices of craft beers have increased considerably. There are pretty much 2 main regions in the world that supply us with hops, one in Germany and one in England. For a long time they had produced so many hops that they actually had to store what they were harvesting because they had so much extra! Then when the craft brew market really took off 10-15 years ago, Americans (and some of the rest of the world) found a penchant for hops and really wanted more hops in their beer. So we started brewing way more IPA's, porters, stouts, etc... Well, you can only use so much before the supply starts to run thin. And that's exactly what happened. Makes you want to go and open a hop farm huh?

Am I really a beer snob?

2008-05-21T16:55:00.004-05:00

Most people call me a beer snob. That's ok, I probably am one. But hey you gotta have passion for something fun in your life, don't you? Mine is beer! Well, I am actually a professional magician (I've been doing magic now for over 20 years.) I just really wanted to disseminate more information about the lovely world of beer! In the past 10-15 years the craft brew market (or as it was once know the micro brew market) has had a great upsurge. People are beginning to discover the wonderful variety of beer that is available. Where I live here in Dallas, we get a LOT of really good unique hard to find beers. A lot of this can be attributed to the specialty beer stores who request it from our distributors. The weird thing about Texas is our beer laws! They are completely wacko! If a beer is labeled as a "beer" it can only contain so much alcohol in it to be permitted in Texas, otherwise it must say "ale" or "lager" or whatever, just not "beer". How dumb is that! I guess I really shouldn't complain considering the fine selection we get...

Finally brewing my own beer!

2008-05-21T16:12:00.001-05:00

I started my venture into the craft brew market back in the late 80's when it wasn't the hip thing everyone did. Well after many years of enjoying quality craft brewed beers, I decided to take the plunge and brew my own! I mean, why not? I can have a beer that taste exactly how I want it! Let me tell you, it is a time consuming process. Not a difficult one, though. Just time consuming. If you really want to do your beer right, you need to follow the 1-2-3- rule which is: 1 week in the primary fermenter, 2 weeks in the secondary fermenter, and 3 weeks in the bottle. That's six weeks before you can taste your wonderful creation! Luckily I have patience... Not! I opened my first bottle after a week! It had what i thought was a light cinnamon flavor and aroma (I brewed and Irish red ale and dry hopped it with some cascade hops). But after another 3 days things really mellowed out and it lost that cinnamon flavor and aroma. So far it isn't that bad. I think next time I'm going to try doing an IPA or a stout. (btw, I'm a hophead).

Westvleteren

2008-05-21T15:51:00.005-05:00

Yeah!! I got to drink my first Westvleteren abt 12 (Hopefully I'll get more). A good friend of mine made a trek to Belgium and visited the abbey de st. sixtus monastery. For those who don't know what Westvleteren is, it is considered as the rarest beer in the world because the only place you can get it is at the monastery. Plus, you can only get one case per car. Plus, they only brew it when they need the money and when they don't need the money anymore, they stop brewing. So as you can see this is really hard to get! Well I gotta tell you, this beer was simply amazing! There were so many different flavors (raisins, plums, chocolate, slight coffee, figs, etc..) in this thing. And the sweet fruity flavor lasted forever! This beer is by far the best beer I have ever had and I've had a lot. Probably around 500... So the next time your in the town of Westvleteren in Belgium, be sure to stop by the abbey de st sixtus and pick yourself up a bottle of the ruby delightful nectar!