Glibertarians.com 2019 Archive

Author: Nephilium

  • Some horror movie picks for Halloween.

    It’s that time of year to settle in and throw in a horror film.  So, which ones should you watch? You could stick with Jaws, Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, Saw, Hellraiser (did you know they made 10 of them), Child’s Play, Scream, Halloween, or your favorite long running franchise.  Instead, I’m here with 7 of my favorite lesser known horror films, with some honorable mentions for some comedy horror films.

    HM: Zombeavers (2015)/Tucker and Dale vs. Evil (2010)/My Name is Bruce (2007)

    Yes, three honorable mentions.  My article, my rules.

    All three of these are comedy/horror films with different target audiences.  Zombeavers targets the classic horror movie fans, using the standard tropes of the tales, but turning them around.  It’s about a toxic waste spill that turns a dam of beavers into bloodthirsty killers. Anyone bitten by them will eventually get sick and turn into one as well.  Do not expect high brow cinema going into this. The ending may very well kill Swiss, as they show another toxic waste spill, this time getting into a beehive (go ahead, so what the name of that one should be).

    Tucker and Dale vs. Evil targets the more casual horror fan.  Ever hear about killer rednecks and their murder cabins in the woods?  Then you know what you need to going into this movie. In this case, the two rednecks are just trying to get to their newly purchased vacation cabin and get it fixed up.  After a terrible attempt at flirting, some local college kids get creeped out and scared by them. Misunderstandings happen, college kids keep dying, and there’s even a woodchipper scene.

    My Name is Bruce targets the fans of the one (and only) Bruce Campbell.  In a small city, some kids fooling around in a graveyard unleash an ancient Chinese demon.  One of them is the worst kind of fanboy, thinking that Bruce is exactly like Ash from the Evil Dead movies and goes to recruit him to help.  If you don’t know who Bruce Campbell is, and have never seen the Evil Dead movies, go watch them instead.

    7th: The Devil’s Backbone (2001)

    Alright, into the serious ones.  Fair warning, this is a Spanish horror film done by Guillermo del Toro, so expect subtitles.  This is set at an orphanage during the last year of the Spanish Civil War. There’s great visuals, a creepy ghost, and the question of how can a child keep their innocence in the face of a terrible war.  It’s thematically similar to Pan’s Labyrinth, but didn’t get the widespread acclaim. If you haven’t seen Pan’s Labyrinth, then see that one as well.

    6th: Cube (1997)

    This one you may have heard of, it’s a bit old at this point, but I’m still a fan.  It’s a relatively low budget film that hides it pretty well. A group of people wake up, all in different rooms, all wearing the same clothes, and not remembering how they got there.  The room is a cube, with a door in each side (top and bottom as well). As they move through the rooms, they learn that some are trapped, and work to try to figure out the pattern, and what the hell is going on.  This movie did spawn a sequel and a prequel which don’t quite match the same WTF quotient as the original (in my opinion at least).

    5th: Identity (2003)

    This one uses two familiar premises: opening in media res, and a bunch of travelers getting stranded in a hotel (including a prisoner).  People get assigned rooms, and try to settle in for the night. Someone (or something) has other plans. People start dying, and room keys are left by their bodies that don’t match the rooms the people were in.  Then the bodies start disappearing.  The two premises then get introduced to each other in a fairly novel way.

    4th: Drag Me To Hell (2009)

    Sam Raimi did this one.  If you don’t know who Sam Raimi is, I’ll direct you up towards My Name is Bruce up above.  Raimi was making cult films before he hit the big time with the first Spider Man trilogy. (fun fact: the same Delta 88 has been in almost all of his films).  Drag Me To Hell was his return to horror after the Spider Man trilogy, and he revels in it. A loan officer at the bank is forced to tell a gypsy that the bank can’t extended their mortgage again.  The gypsy curses the poor bank worker, and things start taking a turn to the dark. As they learn more about it, the curse is set to have the loan officer dragged to hell after three days. Lots of blood and gore in this one, don’t watch it if you’re squeamish.

    3rd: In the Mouth of Madness (1995)

    This is probably the best representation of Lovecraft put to cinema.  It’s about an insurance investigator who needs to find out what’s going on with a missing author.  The author is due to submit a new book to the publisher, who took out a multi-million dollar policy against him disappearing.  The insurance investigator believes it’s all a publicity stunt, and parts of it started out that way, until something from outside found a way to use the author to get into this world.  Then it becomes a reality bending story wrapping around in on itself, and managing to swallow its own tail at the end.

    2nd: The Babadook (2014)

    This is one you are the most likely to have heard of, it made a big splash when it came to Netflix.  This tells the tale of a widowed mother raising a six year old by herself. The kid in this movie is a piece of shit as only a six year old can be.  One day, he comes into his mom’s room and asks mom to read him a storybook he found called Mister Babadook. Mister Babadook tells the story of a monster (can you guess his name?) that torments people who learn of his existence.  Strange things start happening in the house, mom blames the kid, the kid blames the Babadook. From this point, things begin to escalate.

    1st: Trick ‘r Treat (2007)

    Time for my favorite cult horror film, one that’s perfect for Halloween.  Trick ‘r Treat is an anthology film telling several interwoven tales that take place in a small town (in Ohio, which seems to be a hotspot for horror movie franchises), with a little boy (known as Sam) witnessing most of the events.  Most of the stories deal with the rules and traditions of Halloween, with those violating them getting punished in some manner. There’s ghost stories, the reason for the jack-o-lanterns, poisoned candy, the proper time to take down the decorations, and what happens to those who don’t give out candy at all?  There’s been rumors of a sequel to this move for over a decade, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up.

    So there’s some of my.favorite horror films to watch.  If I left out your favorite cult film, I may not have seen it (or I may not have considered it cult enough to write it up).  I’ve tried to stay with films that you can easily find to rent, purchase, or stream (otherwise Cemetery Man would be in this list).  I also tried to stay away from the usual slasher films (Urban Legends would fit here), or ones that go too far into sci-fi (Event Horizon would go here).  Go ahead and tell me how wrong I was in the comments.

  • A Beginner’s Guide to Viva

    That's how you can tell we're at a classy place.
    These signs are all over at the Orleans

    Viva Las Vegas, it’s a film, a song, and one of the longest running Rockabilly weekenders in the world. What’s Rockabilly? It’s a style of music that started in the 50’s (primarily in Memphis at a little studio called Sun), had a revival in the 80’s, and has been slapping a bass since then. It’s split up into a huge range of subgenres, some going more punk, others going more “classic” (in this case 1950’s style). Among the fans, there’s also usually an appreciation of classic cars, 50’s fashion, and Americana culture. Pompadours, facial hair, flatcaps, and tattoos are common.

    Back to Viva… this year was the 22nd year that the event was held, and for as long as I’ve been going, it’s been held at the Orleans Casino and Resort in Las Vegas, off the strip. The Orleans is known as a locals casino. But over most Easter weekends (when Viva is held), they turn off the standard music, change it over to Rockabilly, and swarms of people with their classic cars and finest 50’s fashion fall upon the Orleans. The event is popular enough that rooms for the next year go on sale before the tickets for the event do, and the rooms sell out in under three hours.

    The men have it easy, bowling shirts and work shirts are the standard, with a couple of zoot suits and the like being worn. If you have hair, it’s either a high and tight or held up into a pompadour. The women have a much harder time dolling themselves up, but they go through the work and it shows. However, there are some entire families who dress themselves up in matching garb for the day (I’m not too sure about how much say the kids have, but they’re there).

    The Car Show is the highlight. If you can only go for a single day, this is the day.

    Over the course of the weekend, there’s burlesque shows, pinup contests, concerts, DJ’s, vendor rooms, dance lessons, make up lessons, fashion lessons, bowling, movie premiers, and other shows of interest to the attendees. And that’s not even mentioning the car show, it’s massive, with all cars (except the ones from movies/TV shows) being pre-1964. If you’re not careful, you could walk away purchasing one of the cars that are for sale.

    Now that you know what’s going on there, you’ve decided you want to go. Great, what should you plan for? First, plan on walking a lot. I don’t think I’ve walked less than 5 miles any day out there. Realize that you’ll probably not be able to get a room at the Orleans; however, keep in mind that they have a shuttle to their sister property (the Gold Coast), and the strip. Tickets for the main event come in basically two choices: The High Roller, which gives you access to everything all weekend; or the Car Show, which gives you access to the car show only on Saturday (that will include the vendors in that area, and the bands playing there). If you don’t have appropriate garb, then the vendors will be more than happy to help you out there, but bring cash as some do not take credit/debit cards..

    Sweet Pea’s Hooch and Smooch

    If you’re going for the first time, I’d recommend going to Sweet Pea’s Hooch and Smooch on Thursday afternoon. It’s the official meet and greet for the event, and then there’s more specific meetups for singles, LGBT, sober, black pin-ups, etc. I’d also recommend looking over the schedule ahead of time, and try to at least get a rough schedule of the events you want to see. Personally, I’d recommend at least one burlesque event, and the Charles Phoenix slide show. Most of the shows happen multiple times (but may be different for each of them), bands usually only play once, but then hang out around the weekender for the rest (I met one of the players from Los Straitjackets that way, it’s not like you can recognize them).

    I’ve already got my room booked for next year, and I hope to see some of you there.  If you haven’t seen it yet, here’s some pictures from this year, and some from years past.

  • Spring BIF 2019 [Note: This is a pinned post – scroll down for new content]

    The time is upon us.  It’s time to start signing up for the Spring BIF (Beer It Forward, if you don’t know what it is yet, click here).  Signing up will mean you’ll be both receiving, and responsible for shipping, between 72-96 ounces of locally produced beer from and to another participant.  You will be required to at least provide your general location (to avoid shipping to someone you could just drive the beers to). If you wish to include swag (glasses, stickers, coasters, shirts, etc) from the local breweries, it is encouraged, but not required.

    For shipping beer, you can look at this guide to see about the best packaging and shipping methods.  I generally recommend cans and crowlers (32 oz cans filled and sealed at a brewery/bar) over bottles (and strongly recommend against growlers).  Do not ship USPS, as it is a felony.

    To sign up, I’d ask you to e-mail me at my handle at the mail of Google, as well as posting in this thread.  In your e-mail to me, at least provide your handle and general location. If you have beer preferences or dislikes, then please include those as well.  At some point you will need to provide your address to someone so that they can ship to you (if you provide it to me, I’ll pass it along).

    I will also do my best to avoid having any previous participant from shipping to someone they’ve shipped to before.  This is a great way to learn about beers that aren’t available in your area, and to share your favorite local beers with someone elsewhere in the country.  I’d like to keep sign ups open up until about May 18th, with the plan of having everything shipped by June 7th.

  • Enslaving Yeast – Brewing an All Grain Beer

    That’s it.  We’re at the end.  Today we’ll go through the steps to make a beer starting with some malted barley, some hops, water, and yeast.  I just recently brewed up a batch of my Saison, which has been tweaked to my tastes, and is fairly popular with visitors:

    Saison:Three of the four ingredients

    Yield: 5 gallons

    Grain bill (assuming 80% efficiency)
    6 lb 2-row
    4 lb Pilsner (preferably Belgian)
    1 lb Crystal 8L
    1 lb Malted wheat

    Mash at 148 F for 90 minutes

    90 minute boil with the following hop additions:

    1.5 oz Saaz (2.8% AA) at 90 minutes
    .5 oz Saaz (2.8% AA) at 20 minutes

    This should end up with an OG of ~1.050, and a FG of ~1.008 for about 5.5% ABV

    Pitch with a saison yeast (I usually use 565, but used a new one for this batch).

    Mash TunSo what’s different with All Grain versus Extract?  For All Grain beer, you’ll be starting with malted barley, and need to convert the starches in it to sugars.  This is done in the mash. You’ll need a 10 gallon (or larger) insulated (or heated) container with some manner of filtering out the grain from the wort.  This can be done with a stainless steel false bottom, which is something like a colander with smaller holes that sits on the bottom of the mash tun over the spout where you’ll be draining the wort.  Or, you can use a bag that you attach to the side of the mash tun. The bags are cheaper, easier to clean, and prevent stuck sparges. The only problem is you’ll have to lift a heavy (water + grain) bag out of the mash tun in order to clean it.

    There are two main enzymes that will break the starches into sugars, Beta Amylase and Alpha Amylase.  Now, these two enzymes have different temperature ranges that they’re most active in, for Beta Amylase, that range is 131-149°F; for Alpha Amylase, that range is 145-158°F. Anything above those temperatures will denature (break) the enzymes, and they’ll stop working.  The lower the mash temperature, and the longer, the more fermentable sugars you will get from the grain. The higher the mash temperature, the more unfermentable sugars you’ll get. Too high of a temperature (or too short a mash time), and you’ll have unconverted starch in the beer instead of sugar.

    MaltUsing a calculator, we figure out what temperature we need to heat the water up to so that when it is mixed with Mashingthe malt, it’ll be at our expected mash temperature.  This is known as the strike temperature. In this instance, my strike temperature came out to be 160 F. We then take the malt and add the hot water to it.

    During this part of the process, you’ll want a mash paddle, which is used to stir up the mash and break up any dough balls that form.  You can use a big whisk (or spoon) if you want, but stay away from the $5 cheap plastic mash paddles, they do not work all that well for batches over 1 gallon..

    Then we put the top on the mash tun and wait, stirring it every once in a while if you so desire (which will up your efficiency a bit).  So since this is a 90 minute mash, we’ll take this time to discuss efficiency. There’s two main measures of efficiency that matter to the home brewer: Brewhouse efficiency – how much of the sugars did you get to out of the malt and into the fermenter at the end of the day (80% is a good standard to reach for); Conversion efficiency – How many of the sugars did you get out of the malt.  These numbers will be different, because there’s going to be some loss in water absorbed by the grain, left in the mash tun, and left in the boil kettle at the end.

    First RunningsThird RunningsSo while the mash is going, we’ll also heat up water for sparging (rinsing more sugars off the malt).  We want this water to be hot (I usually aim for 185 F and boiling), because we want to stop the conversion process, and because we need to get all of this wort up to a boil anyway.  I do a 2 step batch sparge. So after draining the mash tun, I’ll dump hot water over the grain and drain it twice.  You can do a single batch sparge, or even a continuous sparge (where you have a pump recirculating the mash over the grain).

    All of these runnings will go into the boil kettle and brought up to a boil.  At this point, you follow the same steps as you would for an extract batch. Now you just have to clean up your mash tun, and decide what to do with the spent grain.  The grain still will have some sweetness to it, and can be used to feed livestock, dried and ground into flour, or used in its current state to make spent grain bread.

    And for sitting through all of these columns, here’s a bonus recipe:

    English Mild

    Yield: 5 Gallons
    OG: 1.034
    FG: 1.008
    ABV: ~3.3%

    60 Minute boil

    Grain bill:

    4 lb Maris Otter
    1 lb Crystal 90 L
    1 lb Crystal 30 L
    1 lb Carapils

    Mash at 150 for 90 minutes.

    Hops:

    1 oz East Kent Golding (7.2% AA) at 60 minutes

    Ferment with a Dry English Yeast (I use WLP007 for this one)

  • Enslaving Yeast – All Grain Beer Part 3 – Water and Yeast

    Today, we’re at the last two ingredients used in beer.  Both of which are more complex than any of the ingredients we’ve talked about so far.  That’s right, now it’s time to talk about water and yeast.

    Water is usually the last thing most homebrewers start researching, which is somewhat strange since 90% of beer is water.  Water chemistry is why there are different styles of beers associated with different regions. The water sources used in those historic breweries were well suited for specific beer styles.  The brewers may not have understood the water chemistry, but they knew which beers tasted better when they made them. One of the most important of these towns is Burton-on-Trent and you can buy Burton salts to this day to adjust the chemistry of your brewing water.

    Most of the larger commercial breweries today will user reverse osmosis filters to make a neutral water, then adjust the water to what they want with additions.  Homebrewers do have the option to do this as well, but it increases costs, and prep time. If you want more visibility into what your tap water has in it, you can either contact your municipal water department, or ask at your local homebrew shop.  If you’re on a well or other water source, you may need to spring for the water test yourself.

    If you want to start making changes to your brewing water, Bru’n Water is a highly regarded site and source.  Be warned, it’s a deep subject and it can be really easy to get into the weeds here.  Another option is to brew a variety of styles, and see which ones you’re happy with and focus on them.  Then work on adjusting the water chemistry to better match the styles that you’re not happy with the results of.

    Yeast is the other dark art ingredient.  There’s an old saying in the brewing world that brewers make wort, yeast makes beer.  You’ve spent time and money to make this wort, and now you throw a living organism in there to spoil it in a very specific way.  While I named this series Enslaving Yeast, really you’re going to be building an all expense paid, luxury resort for the yeast and throwing them in.

    There’s two major families of yeast strains used in brewing: Ale, and Lager.  In general, Ale yeasts (top fermenting) can tolerate higher temperatures, and will produce more flavor notes.  Lager yeasts (bottom fermenting) need a lower fermentation temperature, and will generally be a slower ferment.

    The key to a good fermentation is healthy yeast.  The key to healthy yeast is making sure the proper nutrients are there, you pitch the correct amount of yeast, and the yeast is healthy to begin with.  One of the easier ways to do this is with a pitch rate calculator.  This will estimate how many healthy yeast cells you’re throwing into your wort, and how many you’ll need for a good clean fermentation.  The reason you want healthy yeast is to make sure they reproduce faster then wild yeast or bacteria, and you get the flavor profile you want.

    Another option is to make a starter (which you can also use to make extra yeast to set aside for a later batch).  To make a starter, mix up some fermentables (DME is the preferred one here) with water in a ½ to 1 gallon jug (or flask if you want to look fancy), put on an airlock, and shake it up on a regular basis.  You can also buy (or build) a stir plate to keep the yeast agitated for the day or so it will take for them to propagate enough. Then you can cold crash the starter, pour off the liquid (which would technically be a very flavorless beer), and pitch (or save) the yeast.

    If you want to harvest yeast from a commercial source, save some dregs of a bottle conditioned beer, and pitch those into a small starter.  Step that starter up a couple of times (say from 16 oz. to 32 oz. to 64 oz.) and you’ll have a viable amount of yeast to pitch. Keep in mind your sanitation here, and some brewers do use different strains of yeast to bottle condition their beers then they do to ferment them.  There’s quite a few threads around on the homebrewing forums talking about who uses what.  I’ll say that I detected no difference between the Saison DuPont yeast and the WLP565 in a batch I made.  Also, that if you go with Ommegang yeast, it ferments hard and fast… use a blow off tube.  Harvesting dregs is also one of the few ways you can attempt to culture some items such as the lambic blends (for sour beers).

    The last thing you’ll want for your yeast is a stable temperature range in their preferred temperature range.  Different yeasts have different preferences, and they will generate heat themselves as they go through the fermentation process.  While temperature control is generally believed to be really important, as long as you have stable temperatures, you’ll generally be able to make good beer (so don’t put it next to a heating/AC vent).

    That’s the ingredients, next we’ll go through the mash.  The only difference between all grain brewing and extract brewing.