24 w/ a side of revelations.

well, let's start at the beginning. i wanna thank everyone who came out to Bru for my birthday shindig last weekend. from what i remember of it, a lot of fun was had...a lot of drinks were drank...a lot of shots were taken...a few carbombs were slammed...and some great friends made sure i got home alright. if anyone wants to see pics, check them out on facebook. Dave was the resident photographer that night, and he took some good ones.

being 24 doesn't seem to change much, but it just sounds shittier than 23. not really sure why. i think it is a bit of a motivating factor, though...get another year tacked onto the odometer, re-evaluate the current situation, come up with a plan to make the necessary changes. an interesting web site that i came across thanks to my friend Candice was an interesting one to find during this re-evaluation...it's called Future Me. basically,it let's you write an email and send it to yourself at a certain time in the future. an electronic time capsule if you will. the site's getting a ton of hits and the overhead is so low that i could see the site actually still being around long enough for one of these emails to be sent. pretty interesting concept. god, i love the internet.

in this process, i realized that i need to get down to business with my thesis immediately. i realized that the time it takes me to write is almost completely up to me, and if i work hard enough on it, i should be able to get it done by the early summer, which would be really awesome in terms of my current financial situation and travel plans i have for the summer. so, i need to get into the library today to start the painstaking research. the sooner i get this thesis out of the way, the sooner i can jump headfirst into the brewing world.

sitting at Dieu Du Ciel last night, drinking some pints with Carm, the longing to own my own brewpub burned so brightly inside that i almost felt like ditching the thesis program and just going for it, but i know i won't do that. the feeling just re-affirmed how badly i want to start on this career path. on a similar note, i'm soon submitting my mint-chocolate stout, dubbed "Junior Mints 'n' Bosco, to both the March in Montreal Homebrew Competition and the National Homebrew Competition. from all the feedback i've been getting from the serious beer people around here, it's got a chance to medal, so i'm really excited. i'm also going to attempt to brew it again this week to see if i can recreate it accurately (though i'm adding flaked barley to increase the head retention (thanks Aaron) and using a british ale yeast instead of an irish ale one, only because Steph at the homebrew shop didn't have the latter). after that, i've got a few IPAs up my sleeve to use up the ridiculous amount of US hops that are in my freezer. i also have to bottle my Altbier, tentatively named "Falter", within the next day or so.

on some random notes:

i apologize for the suggestion to read the Two Dudes blog. it had (and still does have) damn good potential, but everyone's going to have to wait until they buy internet for their house and stop having to go to the public library to blog. i'm disappointed guys. you both have steady jobs. you can afford to shell out 40 bucks a month. i guarantee that by the start of baseball season, it will be worth reading, cause they're going to need internet when that happens.

the dad at the beginning of The Neverending Story is a dick! how old is Bastian? maybe 11? and his dad is giving him shit for still being upset that his mom died and for drawing doodles of unicorns in his math notebook? he's fuckin' 11! ease off the kid, hitler.

alright...time to get down to it. catch you all on the flipside.