__________ is the opiate of the masses.
Fill in the blank with your favourite noun/s:
a) Religion
b) Televised Sport
c) Reality TV
Can you think of any other contenders?
I'm sitting at home with a horrible flu right now, so LJ seems like a pretty productive way to kill some time. I've got one episode left of the first season of The Riches, then I'll probably make my way through Sidekick, Boxing Day and Rat Fink.
An hilarious article caught my attention in The West Australian this morning, with a snippet on the front page announcing "Red meat 'essential for a healthy diet'". Of course this new report (new, in the sense that it's the first attack on vegetarianism that I've noticed in at least a few weeks) is brought to us by Meat and Livestock Australia (as they most frequently are), the equivalent of a musician wearing their own band t-shirt, and requesting their own songs on the radio. Almost everything about The West Australian seems to anger me nowadays. If it wasn't for Vic Crossland's beer column (which has been combined in a state of reckless abandon with Ray Jordon's mediocre wine column) most thursdays, I'd be mighty tempted to burn their fine establishment to the ground. And even then, Vic is hardly the voice of Perth's beer advocates, and at times seems tainted by whomever it is backstage pulling the strings.
In breaking news - I'm such a hopeless homebrewer that I just at this very minute got off the phone from my old work Grain and Grape (homebrew store) in Melbourne to let me know 4 wild yeast cultures I'd ordered had come in, and knowing that they had a fathers day 20% off special this week I managed to rack up around $300 worth of "essentials", bringing my total homebrew related spendings in the last week to over $800.
In hindsight I shouldn't be spending so much money on brewing, having just spend $2200 getting my car back on the road (the engine, water pump, and radiator blew up, and the brakes needed replacing). I was hoping to get to Melbourne in the next few months to see Battles and La Quiete, but living at home is pretty un-bear-able so I probably should be (and was, until the car thing and these impulse homebrew purchases...) saving what few pennies I have left for when me and my friends find the right place to move into. In my defense, homebrewing makes life worth living.
In local (read: my) brewing news, I put down a Super Saison on the weekend, racked onto the yeast cake from a Biere De Garde, both of which are traditional French farmhouse style ales. I also bottled an Imperial Pale Ale last week, with enough bitterness to strip the paint off the wall in 'that' alleyway near Hell's Kitchen.
Also worth mentioning is my sweet new job working at the International Beer Shop on Saturdays. The bad news is that being around all that beer all day tends to make me buy a lot more of it each week, but the good news is now it only costs me half as much.
I've been quite bored with the internet lately, so I think I'll get back into doing these journal things more often. It's good to be able to vent/rant aimlessly sans audience.
Fin.
a) Religion
b) Televised Sport
c) Reality TV
Can you think of any other contenders?
I'm sitting at home with a horrible flu right now, so LJ seems like a pretty productive way to kill some time. I've got one episode left of the first season of The Riches, then I'll probably make my way through Sidekick, Boxing Day and Rat Fink.
An hilarious article caught my attention in The West Australian this morning, with a snippet on the front page announcing "Red meat 'essential for a healthy diet'". Of course this new report (new, in the sense that it's the first attack on vegetarianism that I've noticed in at least a few weeks) is brought to us by Meat and Livestock Australia (as they most frequently are), the equivalent of a musician wearing their own band t-shirt, and requesting their own songs on the radio. Almost everything about The West Australian seems to anger me nowadays. If it wasn't for Vic Crossland's beer column (which has been combined in a state of reckless abandon with Ray Jordon's mediocre wine column) most thursdays, I'd be mighty tempted to burn their fine establishment to the ground. And even then, Vic is hardly the voice of Perth's beer advocates, and at times seems tainted by whomever it is backstage pulling the strings.
In breaking news - I'm such a hopeless homebrewer that I just at this very minute got off the phone from my old work Grain and Grape (homebrew store) in Melbourne to let me know 4 wild yeast cultures I'd ordered had come in, and knowing that they had a fathers day 20% off special this week I managed to rack up around $300 worth of "essentials", bringing my total homebrew related spendings in the last week to over $800.
In hindsight I shouldn't be spending so much money on brewing, having just spend $2200 getting my car back on the road (the engine, water pump, and radiator blew up, and the brakes needed replacing). I was hoping to get to Melbourne in the next few months to see Battles and La Quiete, but living at home is pretty un-bear-able so I probably should be (and was, until the car thing and these impulse homebrew purchases...) saving what few pennies I have left for when me and my friends find the right place to move into. In my defense, homebrewing makes life worth living.
In local (read: my) brewing news, I put down a Super Saison on the weekend, racked onto the yeast cake from a Biere De Garde, both of which are traditional French farmhouse style ales. I also bottled an Imperial Pale Ale last week, with enough bitterness to strip the paint off the wall in 'that' alleyway near Hell's Kitchen.
Also worth mentioning is my sweet new job working at the International Beer Shop on Saturdays. The bad news is that being around all that beer all day tends to make me buy a lot more of it each week, but the good news is now it only costs me half as much.
I've been quite bored with the internet lately, so I think I'll get back into doing these journal things more often. It's good to be able to vent/rant aimlessly sans audience.
Fin.