Douche vs Turd Sandwich

I am not as good a talker as I am a writer. My mind works at the speed of handwriting or typing, not quite at the speed of my mouth. That's why I get into arguments with people about things I feel strongly about, have done lots of research on, have a thoroughly informed opinion of, and I sound like a blathering idiot. I organize my thoughts better on paper or in my blog. So this is something I'm writing that was brought on by a disagreement with one of my best friends ever. In fact we were probably agreeing more than disagreeing but because I can't talk properly, it sounded like I was yelling at her. I was raising my voice because what was coming out of my mouth wasn't what I wanted and that's frustrating.

We were disagreeing about the vote. That last bastion of democracy that political workers have done everything from hiring celebrities to Big Brother brainwashing to hammer into our heads that it is some sort of huge privelege and it represents our freedom and democracy. My argument was basically, "PPPpbbbbttthhhhhbbbbttttt!" And that was about as effectively as I worded it. I hope I can do better here. One of the things that came up in our argument was Harper, that THING in charge of ruining Canada right now. If I don't vote along with other Harper haters, he just might be allowed to continue. I didn't explain it well but I believe the vote should be used to get somebody IN not OUT. That's just one of the many ways I think the vote and democracy in Canada has been cheapened over the years. One of my other best friends ever sent me this:

Maybe it's another case of the wise, old Oscar Wilde saying and if I want to convince anyone that our system of government is messed up, I have to do it in a humourous way. Or they will kill me. So there you go. Can't get more accurate than that, can you?

Anyway, it's election time in Canada and I'm seeing a lot of irritating posts on facebook. Most irritating are the ones from Harper supporting friends who are doing the old switcheroo and claiming that people who hate Harper are the ones with cognitive dissonance. Saying that somehow we hate him but we can't prove why. They even give it a medical, scientific sounding acronym, HDF, which means Harper Derangement Frenzy. This ailment is acute in us Harper haters and it impairs our ability to reason clearly. So I'm told. But I wouldn't know because I can't reason clearly.

This must be why I put absolutely no stock in the glowing report Canada got recently from the highly reputable institute called, what else, the Reputation Institute that ranked Canada as the most reputable and admired country in the world. It is only my disability to reason clearly that keeps me from trusting that the most scientific methods imaginable were used to gather data for such an abstract title. Same goes for our number 5 ranking in "world happiness." I confess, my acute Harper hatred has caused me to doubt the hard science that must have gone into this study. Soft power? Social progress? What the hell are these things?

And when Harper supporters claim the #1 spot for "best country for business" proudly, it is only my blind hatred of Harper that brings to mind the statement of Confucius, "In a well governed country, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a poorly governed country, wealth is something to be ashamed of." I don't doubt Canada is the best country for business. I've written several examples before and I am sure there are many others. But it must be my irrational dislike for Harper that causes me to believe that only the rich and selfish, mostly foreign, are benefitting from Canada's world leading business practices. That's why, as explained a few times before, Norway has less oil than Canada, yet every Norwegian has a million-dollar pension because of it and I, a citizen of a vastly more oil rich country, probably won't ever get one.

The exact same thing can be said for our number 7 ranking in the world's most open governments scientific study. It's true. I believe it. Because the government has to be open to allow foreign corporations to steal our country's natural resources and fuck up its fragile ecosystems. I'm certain this has nothing to do with Harper's communication with other politicians, reporters, the public, well pretty much anybody who isn't waving briefcases full of money at him. But that's just the HDF talking.

Job growth, GDP growth, net debt reduction. These are things that are heralded by Harper supporters as evi-dense of his stellar prime ministership. Cited as rock-solid proof is that most fantastically creative annual work of fiction, the national budget. Then I read this article in the Huffington Post called the Top 10 Reasons To Vote For Anyone But Harper.

Look at number 2. It says Harper's economic record and job creation record are the worst of any PM since WWII. And then take a gander at number 5. It says that before Harper's reign of terror, (sorry. HDF spasm), there were 9 consecutive budget surplusses. In his 7 years at the helm there have been 7 consecutive deficits. 127 billion more HDF induced hallucinations I suppose.

Any list of Harper government achievements comes with a list of facts that renders the former list sadly ironic. Almost as ironic as the Harper supporters accusing Harper haters of ignoring reason. It brings to mind a most English of English sayings: "Are you taking a piss?" Or in a more PG13 version, "Are you winding me up?" Even when a Harper supporter talks about something that appears to be good, like the child care credits, we find that they are only available to a choice group of Canadians who need them the least and they are taxed so much that they end up costing more than they are benefitting. One of my friends proudly stated that at least Harper hasn't had scandals like the such and such government before him. Let's just ignore the fact that that statement is making me think of the last time I went to the circus and saw an elephant stand on its hind legs and a LAKE of piss came gushing out... ahem, is that what we are looking for in our leadership? No scandals? "It's okay if he de-protects water and changes laws to facilitate ease of illegal immigration and environmentally disastrous pipeline building despite Canada's environmental protection record going into the toilet, oil spills, including the largest on land ever, constantly being downplayed and kept from public attention, environmentalists being muted and defunded, as long as there are no scandals." It seems to my HDF-addled brain, that any perceived shortage of scandals, real or selectively observed, has more to do with the effective control of media than effective government.

That's the other irritating thing to me about election time: as a nation, and I'd go so far as to say the same goes for America, we have gotten to a point in our histories where we accept such weak, watered down shadows of the democracy we once prided ourselves in having. Those who think they know me well might believe I hate the vote. I agree with Mark Twain who says, "If voting made any difference, they wouldn't allow us to do it." But that doesn't mean I hate voting. People who don't vote aren't just too lazy or too busy or too stupid. This is such a common misconception! And it's a huge weakness in our system of government that bad people depend upon. There is a very real, very well developed, even well nurtured voter remorse in places like Canada created by many years of non-democracy being called deomocracy. Many who voted again and again and again and got a small amount of what they voted for, or even NONE of it, have given up. But don't be deceived. If we had anyone worthy of casting a ballot for, we'd be back. Give us a Bernie Sanders in Canada and I would not only vote, I'd encourage others to do so.

At the same time the Vote has become an untouchable, religious ceremony to Canadians and Americans. Sorry if I insert another Mark Twain quote here that fits quite nicely: "Religion was invented when the first con man met the first fool." Now please don't take this to mean I believe that all religion is con men conning fools. I just believe that in the case of the almighty vote, this IS the case. Can you tell me one SINGLE other thing that all politicians agree upon? Why do you think that is so? And who do you think is perpetuating the holiness of the vote? And to re-post that old line once again, "I wonder who would lead us if none of us would vote."

But I don't hate the vote. In fact I use it constantly in my life. In the classroom I let students vote on lessons sometimes. I will agree to a democratic choice of where to eat or drink on Saturday night even if I'm outvoted. I believe whole-heartedly in democracy. That's why I am possibly even more extreme than most in my belief in the vote. I believe that if a politician doesn't get at least 50% of the common vote, the election is not good. Otherwise, we really can't accurately say it's democratic. Though we always do. In fact even a 50% victory is going to fall far short of a true democracy, as our history of voting has proved time and time again, because even the BEST of politicians is only going to do about 50% of what he/she says.

Democracy is voting and letting the majority decide. There has never been, as far as I know, a government in either country in which the people got what 50% or more wanted. That means the majority is not deciding. That means it ain't democracy. The problem is NOT with the vote! I get so frustrated when I see these posts on people's facebook pages stating monumentally misinformed things like, "Bad politicians are elected by good people who don't vote." This may sound like a stretch but bear with me: That is like saying Charles Manson's grandparents are responsible for the crimes he committed. I don't know if anyone can, but let's pretend that we can see back to the time when Charles Manson's parents were dating. Maybe their parents, (his grandparents), told the two lovebirds time and time again not to have sex. They just had a feeling that nothing good could come of it. Maybe even saw a vision of the future. They voiced their opinions constantly, but Manson's parents only listened to them about once every four years when they ran out of money and needed a loan. At loan time the grandparents always said, "Okay, we'll give you just ONE more loan, just promise us one thing: don't have sny kids." Manson's parents always made genuine sounding promises at loan time. The future Mrs. Manson went on the pill. Mr. Manson bought condoms. But they spent their loan money on drugs, booze and sleazy hotel rooms where they could fuck like bunnyrabbits. Well on conception day Mommy hadn't used her pill and Daddy had run out of condoms. Manson was born. He killed seven people and is still rotting in jail for it. Who is at fault?

Manson's parents raised him and probably had some influence on his morality, just like the memebers of municipal, regional, state and provincial governments have some influence on the PM or President. Ideally, they should do what the voters, (grandparents), want. But they rarely do. Still, in these modern times when everything anybody does wrong can always be blamed on someone else, bad PM's and Presidents aren't blamed, nor are the members of their parties or even oppositions. It's the VOTERS' fault??? That's not even right, it's the NON voters' fault. That's like saying Manson's crimes were the fault of a FRIEND of his grandparents. It's ludicrous!

Let's go back to that article I gave a link to. I agree with it, sort of. Harper is bad. What he's done to Canada is equivalent to mass murder. The members of the Conservative party aren't at fault although they have some influence on him. Certainly the voters who voted for him are not at fault because a majority of what he's done was not in the election ads. The ones who DIDN'T vote for him have even LESS blame, but they DID support the system of government that got him elected. The ONLY people whose hands are clean in the midst of the most disastrous governments Canada has had maybe ever are the ones who didn't vote at all. But somehow the politicians want you to believe it's their fault. Why? Because if nobody voted, their jobs would be illegitimate. They'd be like CEO's of companies with no investors. Commissioners of sports leagues with no players. Voting is what keeps these guys in business. If you vote, you participate in our system of government, which, (you knew it had to be about money didn't you?), includes taxation.

Taxation, politics, economics, wheeling and dealing as the Prime representative of Canada. That comes with a lot of money, power and responsibility. This, unfortunately, attracts a lot of bad, greedy, capitalistic candidates because of the MASSIVE opportunities for mismanagement of the country and corruption. So am I only referring to Harper? Absolutely not. In my lifetime, as far as I can remember, there have been zero people who I could vote for that would have given me, and the majority of Canada, what we wanted. That is to say we have never had an opportunity at an actual democracy in our country. I would like to see a Canada that votes for ideas. This would be the most democratic solution. However, I know that not everybody would be willing to read all the details of all the issues. Many majorities would vote for the better options, but some wouldn't. So we'd get bad things because of ignorance.

I DO believe our system can work as we have it believe it or not. The problem is, we need honest and good politicians all the way up and we have to rid the system of its inherent corruption. The fault of our political system is NOT with the voters or the non-voters, it's with the scumbag politicians that a corrupt system of government attracts. Charles Manson killed those people and the legal system is reasonable enough to find him at fault and throw him in jail. But when it comes to politics, where does the reason go? Why are even the people who hate Harper trying to shift blame here? He's the poster boy for the problem with Canadian politics. Period. The fix couldn't be simpler. STOP LYING, CHEATING, AND STEALING. How to change the system is the complicated part. We need stringent rules, laws, checks and balances for the oversight of our politicians. We need candidates who offer what we want as a country instead of a little of what we want and a lot of what we don't want according to party policies.

Folks, voting for "anybody but Harper" will just get us Trudeau and I don't think he's what Canada wants. He's better, but he's still a turd sandwich. Or is he a douche? A turd sandwich vs. a douche. Modern democracy. Yay?

A little more Harper harping

This was posted by a Canadian internet friend today. While last week, this:

was posted by an American internet friend. Does that say, "Socialist" beside Canada? Do Americans think we are a socialist country? Do Canadians?

I sure wish we were! I'd still be there. On another internet post about how if you're broke, tired, overworked and unhappy you may be suffering from capitalism I got a response from someone that is the old stand-by argument: "So are you telling me socialism worked in Asia?" Probably referring to Cambodia's Khmer Rouge disaster or the ongoing disaster called the Chinese Communist Party, (which, strangely, calls itself socialist.) Who knows, maybe Indonesia or East Timor or some other lesser known socialism was what the commentor referred to.

The fact is Socialism, even Communism can work if it is handled properly by the right people. All over Europe there are good examples. Here's one:

I DO think America should follow their lead. And Canada and pretty much every country. You know, sometimes I wish I knew a little less about this sort of stuff. It would allow me to enjoy TV more. I was recently, (like yesterday), watching Ice Cold Gold because I love that kind of show. Reminds me of the summer I spent drilling. Only I don't have to be out there suffering with them. Although I gladly WOULD for the money they're making. Okay, let me explain:

From the beginning I was wondering how a group of American prospectors were just allowed to waltz into Greenland, dig around looking for gold and gems, find them and sneak outta there with them. I wondered how much these miners were paying the Greenlandian government for extracting the minerals from this land they don't live on or pay taxes on. Because of all I know about politics everywhere I guessed that it wasn't very much and if ANY of it at all went to benefit the people of Greenland, it would be a miracle. This, to me, was unfair.

It reminded me of a dead horse I'd like to flog once again here in my blog. $2.25 ring a bell? That's how much Nestle paid to the government of Canada to extract every million litres of fresh water out of the ground in B.C. and then sell it back to Canadians at about a million times what they paid for it. It was even cheaper in Ontario. This too is grossly unfair. And if we had any kind of government it would be stopped. In fact it would never have been allowed in the first place.

But back to Greenland. These miners found a huge deposit of rubies in Greenland at a site they prospected and staked a claim on. It turned out to be about 13 million dollars worth, maybe more. The show was really interesting though. The whole time the men were finding these rubies one after another and finding them in the core they were taking, which meant there were many more, they all KNEW they had struck it rich. They were all millionaires. But none of them were satisfied. They all talked like if they didn't find a rich deposit of gold or blue sapphire, their season would be a bust. They all got greedy. Then they started bickering and fighting. I was disgusted with these guys I had watched for two seasons of the show! They reminded me of that awesome, old movie, "The Treasure of the Sierra Madres."

But then it got even better! They knew the locals knew about their find. They had found a strange chisel on the ruby site. And then there was a strange boat cruising around their base camp. They all got paranoid that somebody would jump their claim and run away with some of their rubies. THEIR rubies. Like that old saying, they were worried that someone would take what they had rightfully stolen.

They gathered up as much of the rubies as they could and skulked out of Greenland. The comment was made by the leader of the group and head geologist, "I'm glad we got back to town with the rubies at night so no one could see us."

At the beginning of season three two things happened. Two shocking things. The group voted out Chad, a sluice miner who they felt had not shown as much worth to the crew as the others. They also mentioned that he did not have the right, go-get-it attitude. Basically, I thought as I watched, he wasn't greedy enough.

And then the real bombshell came. During the winter after the partial ruby extraction, the government of Greenland, who were probably the ones scouting the claim, did some re-zoning and made some new rules and basically said that these guys couldn't mine their claim any more. I'm pretty sure I was about the only person in the viewing audience who said, "YES!" at home while watching.

Greenland has its own flag but I think it is Danish territory. An autonomous Danish dependant territory. So... socialist. And that's how socialists work.

Another dead horse a flogging: Look at the guys at the top of that list. Norway is rich because they don't allow foreign interests to just waltz in and extract their oil. Every Norwegian has a million dollar pension fund because their government is socialist. That is, they care about their society. You can bet the Greenlandians will get their fair share of the remaining rubies that the Ice Cold Gold crew were nice enough to find for them. And well they should!

Meanwhile back in fake socialist Canada foreign interests like Chinese-owned Nexen are extracting oil from Canadian ground, leaving behind the largest land oil spill ever for us to clean up, messing up our beautiful country and what do average Canadians get out of it? An official appology from Nexen. And that's just one of many examples.

Folks, Canada, under the beligerently capitalist governance of PM Harper is nothing like the socialist state we once were and should be proud of. It is now a capitalist paradise we should all be ashamed of. Remember this in October and buy a wristband that has the letters W.W.H.D. on it. Every time there is a political decision to be made, look at that wristband, ask yourself What Would Harper Do and then do all you can to make sure the government of Canada does the opposite. If the new government of Canada is inexplicably Harper again, prepare for the apocolypse.

Sotted Sow

Here we go! I am going to record this for posterity. I am not sure what that means but it's so I don't forget. I think maybe you, my avid readers, might find this interesting too. I took pics during the various steps of the brewing process and will describe it here. So don't worry, zombies, no talk about real world issues to bring you out of your zombified states. Like Harper trying to tell Canadians that we can't travel anywhere HE decides is a "terrorist" area. So I've heard he's going to ban all travel to the East Hastings area of Vancouver. Ar ar. See? Say it in a funny way.

Anyhoo, the above pic is the first thing I was in charge of. There were some flakes of maise, yes, corn flakes, that had to be soaked in water for a while. I had to keep the temperature between 154 F and 168 F or something like that. It was pretty easy. I did it on Mike and Heather's stove.

This big, glass jug is the fermentor. It's like 6 gallons. That's water mixed with sterilizer inside it. This time we were determined to be EXTRA sterile so as not to get another 37 bottles of vinegar. I tasted the milk stout. WOW! It was vinegar! Hugely disappointing!

Whilst I watched the cornflakes, Mike went to the I Tae Won Brew Store, right behind the Seoul Pub, and bought some other grains for the Sotted Sow, which is a cream ale. This is just one of the grains. We put them all into a sort of cheesecloth bag.

Then in the big pot, the main one on the outside barbecue, Mike put the sack of grain into the water. 5 gallons of water? Something like that.

Then when the time was right we mixed my corn water in. We left both bags in the water for a while and actually rung them out to get all the grainy goodness we could.

The boil went on into the night. As Mike says, "It takes money to make money and it takes beer to make beer." We had a beer or two during the boil.

Then we added flavour hopps and aroma hopps and soon it was time to cool the beer down. This was the fun part. We put cold water, and ice, into the blue cooler. Inside the cooler is a fish tank pump pumping the cool water through the hose and into a copper coil that we put into the kettle of beer. The cold water goes in and comes out pretty hot. I take jugs of the water to the nearest sewer grate and pour it. When the temperature gauge on the kettle reaches the right temperature, we transfer the beer into the big, glass fermentor. It is emptied JUST before we fill it to maintain sanitation.

This is the yeast that is added to the fermentor to begin the, you guessed it, fermentation process. The yeast eat the grainy goodness and crap out alcohol. Yummy! It's quite a lot of action and bubbling. This time around we put an air lock in the top of the fermentor filled with vodka. This air lock allows the air created by the fermentation to escape, but nothing, like fruit flies, to get into the beer.

So the fermentor is iced and kept cool under camouflage so that the boy, (Kellsterino), doesn't yank the air lock out. This may have been the demise of the milk stout. Now we wait two weeks. Then we add some lactose powder, (I think. To make the cream part of the beer), and some more yeast for carbonation, and we put it all in bottles. Hopefully after two more weeks it'll be fully carbonated and delicious.

So that's how we did it. I'm hoping to get good at this. Maybe do it on my own someday soon. We shall see...

Job update: I got a call from the international school. Sometime this week I will go to the school for orientation and to sign contracts. Then the visa process will hopefully begin. I just hope there are no complications. If I could I'd brew beer for a living, but I can't. Gotta get back to work.

The Truth

Here's a sequel to my last post about lies. Typing at 8 in the morning on a Saturday, I'm already on my second cup of tea and thinking about a facebook post that said, "Congratulations on reaching the point in your life when you are waking up when you used to get home on a Saturday." That's some truth right there! I'm not working. Haven't been for some time. Why am I getting up so early for no reason at all? I mean if there was golf or fishing involved, sure, no problem. But all I'm doing today is going to Seoul to help Mike brew some beer.

Ah HA! I think I may have answered my own question. There's another thing about aging: as I get older I need to drink better beer. I was out at what they call in Korea, (and I'm told Germany), a "hof," Friday night and the draft beer tasted like battery acid to me. Not that I've ever tried battery acid but I've got some idea what it would taste like and that beer tasted like it. I bet that beer could turn over an engine. It was nasty. Nasty!

But the old me, or I guess more accurately, the YOUNG me, woulda just plugged my nose for a few beers until it tasted good. Nope. Not any more. I ordered the bottled beer, which was 500 won more. That's 50 cents.

So what I'm saying is life is becoming more expensive as I get older. I should qualify that by saying SOME things are becoming more expensive. When I travel I am staying in nicer accomodations. Maybe it's related to the previous sign of old age. When you go out for a few craft beers, you come home and enjoy the air conditioned comfort of your hotel. Maybe go for a dip in the pool. Then have a nice sleep in a comfortable bed. When you go out for copius amounts of the local swill you come home and pass out for a few hours, then probably have such a bad hangover the toilet facilities are more important than any others. Life.

You may have noticed that I've been neglecting the old bloggage a little bit. I have been noticing a few of my readers have been neglecting it as well. I think that relates to what the most quotable dude I've ever come across, Oscar Wilde said. I find when I start truthing I get these looks:

The zombie apolcolypse is REAL, folks. But it won't be the undead with with limbs falling off craving our brains. It'll be the youngsters trying to get us to stop using them cuz it's too real talking about environmental destruction! It brings them down when you bring up economic terrorism. It harshes their mellow when you tell them they're doing exactly what Big Brother wants them to do. It bums them out when you explain that their drinks are Soma and that loud music is the P.A. speakers chanting mantras like, "Everything is okay," "Don't worry, be happy," "You gotta shake it off. Shake it off," "Work hard for the corporations and escape reality at the club."

I've been working on a story lately. It's a funny story about an ESL hagwon in Korea and the hypocracy of the whole racket. But it's funny. Actually the whole business is hilarious! I don't need to do much more than write about teaching English in Korea and it's a comedy. I haven't seen many books or movies or stories about this yet, but it's begging to be written about. So that's what has kept me away from this blog. And it's likely going to be a lot more readable than the blog. For those of us who don't like taking the medicine of the truth unless it's accompanied by a spoonful of sugary laughter.

As far as the work situation goes, well here's another whole bowl of wrong. Another dose of the truth. It seems the whole country of Korea has to figure out a way of hiring teachers from other countries who are already working here. When it comes to ESL, of course the preferred teachers are from English speaking countries. The E-2 visa you get for teaching ESL actually requires it. But it seems every ad I see is asking for people who HAVE E-2 visas or any of the F visas for Korean citizens who live in other countries and visit Korea, or for foreigners who marry Koreans. To get an E-2 visa you need to be sponsored by a school. To get a job outside the school that sponsors you is either illegal or requires permission from that school, which they don't have to give and are not likely to. I have had camps AND full time jobs get me to the interview, want me to work for them, then ask me about my visa status and it ruins the deal. I have had 10 E-2 visas. They're not hard to get. Used to be, every school was knowledgeable about acquiring them, knew what paperwork was required from them as well as their employee, AND they would pay for the visa run. Now I tell the employer that I am on a visitor's visa and will need sponsorship for an E-2 and they get blank looks on their faces. I haven't yet figured out whether they truly have no idea about this important part of their jobs, or if they just want me to do it all and foot the entire bill for becoming legal to work for their company.

How does this work? I'm really confused. Seriously, if anybody reading this knows, please tell me. You get a school to sponsor you for an E-2 and it's good for a year and a month. Then you apply for one of these jobs asking for people who already have E-2 visas. You will have a hard time getting permission from your current employer if you are any good as a teacher. And you have probably worked at your current job for more than a month so your E-2 will expire before the end of the contract, which is almost always a year. What the hell is going on? Are people supposed to just find an E-2 patsy job, work for a week or two and then apply for a REAL job and hope that the patsy job will release them? Again, they don't have to. I see a lot of crappy hagwon jobs being advertised by the teachers who are leaving. Maybe if they can staff their old jobs the hagwon boss will allow them to leave? That seems like an absolutely assinine way of going about getting work. Doesn't it?

But talk about this and you are a heat score. You're a negative Nancy. You're unemployable because you can't adapt to the hardships requisite to the position.

Anyway, I have a great opportunity to teach science at an international school! The contract will be the best I have ever signed! So why am I not excited? Because after the interviewer said he wants me for the job, he asked about my visa status. He then asked me to give him all the rules and regulations about visas in an e-mail. I actually DID this! Now the ball is in his court because in order to start the E-2 visa process I need a signed contract and some proof of the school's legitimacy like their business license number. Then I can get an official visa number that I can take to Japan to get my E-2. But I've been waiting a week for them to get back to me. He's in Singapore right now and says he'll be back Monday and we'll talk. So I'm still not sure I've got this job. If I get it, it could be one of the best experiences I've had in my teaching career. I think I really could LOVE this job. But if they jam out it will have been a massive waste of time like many other jobs I have applied for here in Korea. If I knew it was going to be so hard to get a job here, maybe I would have gone to Viet Nam or Taiwan or, (good God), even China when I was booted out of Indonesia. I sure hope I haven't made the wrong choice here...

Life. Truth. I should just shake it off, have a dozen beer and quit being such a downer I guess. Right? On that note, I'm going to Mike and Heather's to brew some beerzola! Sotted Sow!

P.S. The first batch of brew I watched Mike brew was foiled by fruit flies. DAMMIT! 37 bottles of milk stout gone to waste! It tasted good even before it was carbonated or chilled. I bet it would have been awesome! Anyway, here are some pics of the first failed attempt at brewing I have encountered. Hope springs eternal, however. Mike and I will soon be at it again. Sotted Sow this time. Wish us luck!