End of Year Wrap Up

A up and down year of blogging as I only managed 138 posts (compared to 157 for 2011 although I did stop publishing baseball blog posting on this site and now only publish them to my baseball site).  With the baseball blog posting gone that eliminates about 25-30 posts a year so for the most part I've stayed consistently average.  My one good thing is that I kept up with my comic book haiku.  That was a goal of mine for the complete year.  Also I did crank out 3 short stories which are in the editting process.  While I hoped to send one in for review this year, I still need to work on some of the storylines.  So this is 2012 in a nutshell:

- 34 books read (favorite, Non-Fiction (8 books) - "21" / Fiction (23) - "Glaciers" and "Cloud Atlas" and "Old Man War" / TPB (3) - "Immortal Iron Fist Volumes 1&2")

- Best Comics this Year - Spider-Man (3rd year in a row), All New X-men, and Hawkeye

- Best Movie seen was "Avengers"

- Favorite Album "Synthetica" - Metric and "Theatre is Evil" - Amanda Palmer

- Best Comic Cover was:














- 141 Haiku's Written

- My Favorites:

Solstice
Hot tea, warm fire
Snuggle in, sun's day off
Dog's nose frigid

River
Flowing to somewhere
Endless quest
Ripples uncomplaining

Spring
Sound of the bat
Cracks open Springtime
It rains baseballs

Top Posts
Chris Claremont
Desk Toys Having Fun
"52"
Solar System
Supreme Court
Dream is Still Alive
Clyfford Still Haiku

Top Baseball Posts
GM Thoughts Part II
Holding the Rope
Field of Dreams
Trading for Success
Humidor - A Mirage
Game 25
Open Letter to GM
Coors Field Effect
The Draft
ERA League Average

Neil Gaiman - Sandman Volume 6 Fables

Funny when you connect with a story, this being Volume 6, and finally reading a collection that means something you find out from wikipedia that this is the 'least essential" of the collections!  Perhaps I shouldn't read these once a year and maybe I should just sit down and crank through them but I will keep taking my sweet time.  Maybe the reason I enjoyed this one was because of the variety of story and the how they were a bit more accessible compared to some of the previous volumes.  The beauty of these one off stories was they were very compelling.  I thought the one about Morpheus son was fantastic and hte the last story in the collection about Baghdad.  Rich storytelling.  Gaiman continues to amaze me with his takes on various fables.  Good stuff!

Comic Splat - Week 52

The Amazing Spider-Man #700
Parker's options end
Nothing left, makes final plea
Villian understands?

Philip Jose Farmer - The Other Log of Phileas Fogg

Really I wanted to like this. Whole concept of a mixed universe is so very intriguing but alas this just doesn't work for me.  This is the second Farmer book I have muddled through.  The first was about Tarzan.  Characters and imagination is great, it's just his writing style is so matter fact.  Instead of telling the story he is almost writing like a comic book where he inserts these thought bubbles but the thought bubbles are his thoughts not the storys.  It just makes the story read poorly and you lose sight of the actual story. 

Solstice

Hot tea, warm fire

Snuggle in, sun's day off

Dog's nose frigid

Haiku #9

Haiku #9 was a Chocolate Maple Porter used from a beer kit from Brooklyn Brewshop.  One gallon batch. 

1) 1.2 lbs American 2 Row Malt
2) 0.3 lb Chocolate Malt
3) 0.2 lb Caramel 15 Malt
4) 0.2 lb Black Patent Malt

5) 0.4 oz Fuggle Hops (% AA)
6) 3/4 cup Maple Syrup (15 minutes boil)

7) English Ale Yeast (Solid)

Used Starsan sanitizer.

The Mash

Heated 8 cups of water to 160-170 deg F.  Added grain (placed grain a mesh bag).  Cooked for 60 minutes at 150 deg F.  Raised temperature to 170 deg F at the end of 60 minutes

The Sparge

Removed the grain mesh bag and allowed to drip dry.  Rinsed grain and mesh bag with a gallon of heated water.  Than ran the wort back through the mesh bag.

The Boil

Heated the wort until it began to boil at approximately 210 deg F.  Boil lasted 60 minutes with 0.3 oz of fuggle hops at 0 min (into boil) then added 0.1 oz of fuggle hops at  15 minutes.  Hops placed in a hop mesh bag for duration of boil.  Added 3/4 cups of maple syrup with 5 minutes to left in the boil.

The Fermentation

After boil, removed from heat, cooled wort to approximately 70 degrees.  Filtered the wort through a strainer.  Added the yeast, shook vigorously.  Yeast activated in about 12 hours.

The yeast began fermentation.  Allowed to sit for 2 week.  

The Bottling

Used 3 tablespoons of maple syrup and dissolved this in 1/2 cup of water, siphoned the beer into vessel, stirred and then siphoned into 9 regular bottles.  Allowed to sit for another 2 weeks.

The Tasting

Opened and tried on 12/20/12.  Awesome balanced taste.  Probably my best beer yet as it actually tastes like something you'd buy.  Very pleased.  Surprised that maple syrup doesn't come out as much in the flavor.  Thought it would be sweeter. 

Full and well bodied
Deep chocolate malt goodness
Hint of nature syrup

Comic Splat - Week 51

All New X-men #4
Young vs. Old Battle
How do you fight yourself
Optic Blast of course

Hawkeye #6

Haruki Murakami - Sputnik Sweetheart

A rare short, tight offering from Murakami. Also fairly straightforward until the last half. Having read almost all of his works this one seemed like a bit of a trial for what later becomes 1Q84. Always thought provoking this was a good read. Murakami still appears to struggle with disappearing woman and man left behind to pick up the pieces.  He also loves alternate worlds...

Comic Splat - Week 50

Winter Soldier #13
An All Star Line Up
Black Widow weaves a wide net
Feel bad for bad guy...

Alex Stone - Fooling Houdini

Not the book I wanted.  Think publishers have hit on the Malcolm Gladwell of writing books a little too much.  This book was formulastic in much the same way as the scrabble tournament book and the memory championship book and etc.  While I wasn't looking for the answers to magic maybe I was hoping for more intrigue?  Hard to say but this wasn't it.  Not to say that it wasn't a decent read and I do know a little more about the world of magic now then before I started it just didn't go in the direction I wanted.  Perhaps magic is better seen then read?

Clifford Still Museum Haiku

PH-1039, 1977:

Are they birds in flight?

Perhaps a falling fountain

But see the red heart

PH-163, 1954:

Clifford's still life take

Do you see Vincent's pears?

A composite splot

PH-1071, 1951:

The grey abyss stares 

Wolf pack howl, their mate bleeding

Moon's light documents...

PH-605, 1950:

The blackness caves in

Silver of blue sky remains

Red exposes my fear

PH-247:

Orange screams look at me

Black pillar quietly stands fast

In awash of blue

John Scalzi - The Ghost Brigades

The sequel to Old Man's War and I thought this one was even better than the first.  Compiling storyline, some mystery, and an evil genius, what more could you want from a Sci-Fi story.  Either way the Ghost Brigades is a great storyline and Sagan is a strong female character that is easy to like.  All in all a great book and a decent gotcha for an ending.  Also if the author had the time wrting a series following ghost troopers would be awesome!

Comic Splat - Week 49

All New X-men #3
Cyke forming new team
Breaks out Emma, finds new mutants
Runs into himself?

Amazing Spider-Man #699
Doc Ock last surprise
Peter has one last one too
Will he stay alive?

Hawkeye #5