Aaaugh!’s Neighbors

Blood Orange Wheat Beer

nobody@vox.com(Mollie) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 22:21:21 -0400

I had plans to brew two summer beers. Now here it is mid-August and I've only gotten one of them brewed. Luckily the other is a stout, and though it was touted as a good summer stout, I'm sure it will make a fine autumn beer as well. Regardless, this beer is a Wheat Beer flavored with Blood Orange marmalade. I started with the American Wheat Extract Kit from More Beer.

IMG_3849

Brewing with this kit was an interesting experience for me as the kit didn't have any steeping grains and was 100% powdered malt extract. Of course I couldn't leave well enough alone and brew just a straight wheat beer. I had to mess with it a little bit. Several months back when listening to an episode of Basic Brewing Radio about brewing fruit beers, they mentioned a technique suggested in Radical Brewing by Randy Mosher where the fruit flavor is added by using marmalade. This got me thinking about flavoring a beer using my absolute favorite marmalade ever, Sarabeth's Blood Orange Marmalade.

IMG_3847

The issue with brewing with marmalade is that the pectin will make the beer a little cloudy, so they recommend using it for beers that are supposed to be cloudy, like Wit beers and such. Fortunately, I don't get too worked up over the clarity of my beer, so it didn't bother me use it in the wheat beer. Since I don't actually own the Randy Mosher book and couldn't find it at any of the libraries around here, I had to go with what I was able to read on the internet about the fruit beer using marmalade instructions. I threw about 4 tablespoons of the marmalade into the pot at the end of the boil. Here are the other stats on the beer:

# of gallons in the boil: 6
original gravity: somewhere around 1.040 - 1.044
# of gallons in the fermenter: just slightly less than 5
yeast pitching temp: somewhere around 73 - 75 degrees F
fermentation temp: varied around 65 - 70 degrees F
days in fermenter: 15
final gravity: around 1.010

As you can see I have gotten a little lax with the exactness of the measurements that I'm taking. I think this might be my favorite beer that I've brewed so far. It's a close race between this and the honey oatmeal stout that I did last fall. It's just a nice, easy to drink summer beer with a hint of orange flavor. I only wish that I would have gotten it brewed earlier in the summer as I had planned. Once the temperatures start dropping, my attention will turn to darker beers, so I have to get to drinking this one while it's still warm outside.

IMG_4038

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Ante Up!

nobody@vox.com(Anil) — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 13:36:43 -0400

Bert & Ernie tries Gangsta-Rap

M.O.P.'s "Ante Up" has long been one of my favorite songs, thus I couldn't resist this video. Oddly, it's also one of the few tracks in the world where the edited version might be even more entertaining than the uncensored one.

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blsh

nobody@vox.com(Lint) — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 03:29:12 -0400

I guess this has been available for awhile. I just accidentally stumbled across it by hitting tilde (~).

bloglines console

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Jamie Caliri

nobody@vox.com(Lint) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 22:03:27 -0400

United Airlines - Dragon
United.com: Commercials
Dragon [quicktime] (6.1 MB)
The Making of Dragon [quicktime] (31.2 MB)

United Airlines - Heart

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I love MT Pro :)

nobody@vox.com(Anil) — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 23:26:02 -0400

Movable Type Pro for Social Networks

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Wedding Bells on Vox! (Plus, a few new themes.)

nobody@vox.com(Team Vox) — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 14:26:03 -0400

CONGRATULATIONS PAPI CHULO & SECRET AGENT SCOTCH!

The Happy Couple

"When was the last time you were at a wedding that had a death defying hike, rogue waves, a luau, ultimate fighting, a presidential candidate and a budding bromance?" asks Papi Chulo. For most of us, the answer is never, but luckily, Papi Chulo and Secret Agent Scotch took the time to Vox all the amazing moments during their unforgettable Hawaiian wedding on 08.08.08 so we could all take part in the festivities.

The story began last February, when Papi Chulo popped the question and Secret Agent Scotch said yes! Since then, they've kept us in the loop about all the details, from the bride's veil to the wedding song to the final To-Do List. And throughout it all, they inspired us with their love for each other. (I'm pretty sure it doesn't get any better than knowing your future husband thinks you are The Perfect Girl.)

It's an amazing love story and we are thrilled they shared it with us. Watch the video of the ceremony and please join us in wishing Papi Chulo and Secret Agent Scotch the fairytale ending they deserve.

And What's a Team Vox Post without New Themes?

Spice up your Vox blog with one of our latest themes (found in the design area under "New") or any of our hundreds of themes. From shopping to sushi, comics to cycling, there's something for everyone.

Vox Themes August 08

Left to Right: "Starlight," by Jamison Wieser; "Civic," by Lilia Ahner; "Lone Tree," by Jamison Wieser; "Rainbow Day," by Susan Smuk Jorgensen.

Can't get enough of the wedding? A few lucky Voxers - Krissy, djchall, and Beau Smith - made the trip to Hawaii to take part in the celebration. Check out their Vox blogs for more pictures and stories.

Congratulations again to Secret Agent Scotch and Papi Chulo! Enjoy the Honeymoon!

~daisy

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Seth Rogen

nobody@vox.com(Sarah) — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 14:45:40 -0400

Am I the only one who absolutely *loathes* this guy? It's a mystery to me how he has managed to make it as far as he is in the movie industry. I don't understand why people find him funny, at all, because he comes off, to me, as someone who is so desperately trying to prove he is cool and just entirely failing. Not in movies - in interviews. Not that it matters, since his movie persona IS him, as far as I can tell.

Just wondering.

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Hat Mania!

nobody@vox.com(Mollie) — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 19:14:35 -0400

I've been on a hat knitting jag lately. It started with a skein of Araucania Nature Cotten that a friend of mine gave to me. I wasn't sure what to do with a single skein of it until I saw on Ravelry that someone had made a Foliage hat with one skein of Arucania Nature Cotton. The texture of the yarn and the color of this particular skein seemed just right for a rustic Foliage hat.

Foliage Hat

Unfortunately I had some sort of block against this pattern and kept messing it up. It should have been very simple, but I swear I spent more time tinking this one than I did knitting it. I finally finished it and then was informed by two independent sources that it wasn't my color, so I'm not sure what I'll do with it.

Foliage Hat Modeled

I then moved on to the Odessa, which I knitted for M. It started with the yellow Debbie Bliss Cashmerino DK that she found on sale at our local yarn store. She wanted me to teach her how to knit a hat with it, but I was worried that trying to learn to knit a hat using DK yarn would be an exercise in frustration for her, so I convinced her to let me knit her a hat with the yarn that she loved and promised that I would teach her to knit a hat with some chunky yarn that I have in my stash. I even promised that she wouldn't have to wear the chunky yarn hat when she finished it.

Odessa 3

The pattern called for beads to be strung along the spirals, but I skipped that part of it. This was a very simple pattern once I got it started. I did mess up the crown shaping a bit, but I don't think it's too noticable.

Odessa 2

Since M. and I had new hats, I figured it was time to move on to D. D has a hard time finding hats because his head is a little larger than average size, so I had bought some lamb's pride bulky wool earlier this year to make him a hat that would fit. I sort of improvised the pattern using several different hat pattens that I had seen on-line. It's a vey simple stockinette stitch hat. D would not want anything very fancy. I saw these colors in a tie that some guy was wearing one time and thought they would be good colors for D. He's not a big fan of this picture but here it is.

Dave's Hat 2

I then decided to knit the hat that I planned on knitting for my dad for Christmas. My dad has always liked bright and garish colors and what colors are more bright and garish than hokie colors, so I knitted him a hokie hat. I again improvised a very simple stockinette stitch pattern and knitted it with lamb's pride bulky yarn. I really like the thick and thin stripes on this one. I was a bit concerned that since the hat fitted me, it would be too small for my dad, but my mother assured me that my father doesn't have a very large head, so it should be fine.

Hokie Stripes Hat

Finally, I wrapped up hat mania with a So You Think You Can Hat. I guess someone appearing on So You Think You Can Dance wore a hat similar to this. Some industrius folks on the So You Think You Can Dance Ravelry group liked it so much that they charted out a pattern for it. I was looking for something to do with the one and a half skeins of brown sheep cotton fleece that I had left over from my Rusted Root sweater and thought this hat would be the perfect project. Of course the hat only used up the half skein, so I still have one skein left. The hat looks tiny, tiny, but it's very stretchy and does actually fit on my head. I especially like the crown shaping on this one. And I know that this is my color, so I'll be wearing this hat come winter

So You Think You Can Hat - Back

I'm a little sick of hats now, so I'm going to take a break from them. I need to get back to the Central Park Hoodie knit-a-long that I started last month and I think I'm finally ready to face the 1x1 rib of the striped Noro scarf.

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Follow Your Themes

nobody@vox.com(Team Vox) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 19:26:12 -0400

At Vox, we believe that change is a good thing. After all, you wouldn't wear the same t-shirt day in and day out, so why should your blog have to suffer the same fate? Give your blog a new look with one of our latest themes (found under "New"), or pick from any of our hundreds of themes designed with your passions and personality in mind.

Vox Themes July 08

L to R: Anchored, by Wolfsavard; Feel the Sun, by gollykim; Dare to Inspire, by Teresa Jones; Magic Night, by valuexofxpain; Like a Loving Fish, by lilfairy; Neue Hass, by Jesse Gardner.

And, on the off chance, you do wear the same t-shirt day after day after day? Well... That's another post for another day.

Until then... Enjoy!

-daisy

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Olympics 2008 Monkey Movie

nobody@vox.com(Lint) — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 14:42:17 -0400

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