My beer is fermenting. Whee! It's starting to smell pretty good too. I know it won't be great since I brewed from all extract and I'm only using a single-stage fermentation but it should be OK and that's all I'm hoping for. If you set your expectations low enough, you can't fail.

I got the jet-box for the keg for the party that my friends are having. My only problem is the tap handle says Michelob Light and to me Michelob Light is one of the least acceptable beers on the planet. I'm not sure what beer their getting, I'm hoping Pabst or Stroh's but as long is it's not Amber Bock I'll live through it.

My new years resolution this year is to buy more new music. I buy a lot of old stuff but I'm falling behind on the current musical scene. I should also probably get a job and stuff too.

My next adventure begins tomorrow. I'm going to Columbus to celebrate the new year with my closest and dearest friends then I'm off to Chicago with my friend Jake to visit my friend Ian and meet with my friend Chad and see if I can't work out a living arrangement.

As far as I can tell, my beer hasn't started fermenting yet. I yell at it, "Ferment! Damn you!" but it just won't listen. My beer is a good guy but he's not the smartest. I've named him Logical Pale Ale.

Sepultribe.com doesn't seem to want me as a member despite my repeated requests and I like Sepultura more than any of those bastards. Screw you, Sepultribe.com! I'll get my Sepultura fix elsewhere.

Would you rather have a dog that talks or a frog that talks? I'd rather have a dog. I don't think a frog would have much to say.

I'm finally done with my writing for the Crux for this month. I look foreword to writing more next month.

Andy came back today. It was good to see him especially since he brought back a 30-pack of Old Style and three bags of cheese curdles. We sat around, shot the shit, and listened to some tunes (Isis, Mastodon, Probot, Black Sabbath...). Good times, good times.

Later.

Brewed my first batch of beer today in Marion. Brewing beer is not as much fun as cooking. Mostly, it's literally watching a pot boil. On top of that, tasting your concoction is not as much fun as with food as it doesn't taste like the finished project. It just tastes really sweet with harshly bitter hops. Oh well... In the long run, I suspect it should be at least as fulfilling as cooking is. At the very least, it was relaxing.

I needed some relaxation today too. My father confronted me on the issue of me moving to Chicago. He's irate to say the least. He called me a coward, which I have to admit is a little disturbing to me. I guess I am running away from things in a sense but, not to sound too cliché, I am running toward something else that will ultimately be more fulfilling to me.

I've been bored my whole life outside of a few fleeting romantic moments. Moving to Chicago with no real plans, no safety net, is exciting to me. I want to be excited. I want to live, damnit.

My family seems to think I'm running away from them. I understand they're worried but I wish they'd support me a little more. I love my family, my sisters and my parents, and I'm not ashamed to say it. I'm going to miss them when I'm away.

I still feel like I'm too young to commit myself to a button-down Carree. Being an engineer makes me feel old, old, old. I can't live with that, not now.

I've been doing what I'm supposed to do for too long. I was supposed to go to college so I went. Since I'm good at math, I was supposed to learn to be an engineer. I did that too. My mistake. I'm all for anyone who wants to further their education; you should be learning new things your whole life. But if you choose to go to college, for god's sake don't make the same mistake I did. Learn to do something you love.

I got to leave Toledo but then I had to come back. I went to Pittsburgh. It was a good time. I saw my family and the new Lord of the Rings both of which are excellent.

Tomorrow, I'm leaving to go back to Marion to brew my first batch of beer (a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale clone). The next day, I'm going to Columbus for a New Years Eve celebration. The day after that, I'm going to Chicago to see Tribes of Neurot and to look for a place to live.

I might actually already have a place to live. My friend Chad has a 1200 square foot loft and he needs a roommate. It's pretty reasonably priced and I think the neighborhood should be good enough for me.

That's it for now. Later.

Ahhh, yes... I'm still in Toledo.

You know, I really don't have much to say today. Nothing at all, actually.

Still in Toledo. Ho hum... I'm getting sick of everybody bugging me about moving to Chicago. It's as annoying as my dad bugging me to get a job, or to move back to Toledo, or to go to grad school, or whatever. I'm going to Chicago. That's that. Deal with it.

Like I said, I did read a bit more of Sometimes a Great Notion. I had actually paid so little attention to the first few pages that I had to reread them to make sure I was following the actions. It seems to be an interesting story and mostly well written aside from this one really awkwardly written part where the author, Ken Kesey, tries to intersperse lines of dialog with lyrics from the song on the jukebox and the thoughts of the main character.

I'll do the same thing with my dentist experience today during which the hygienist talked about my teeth while we listened to Christmas songs on the radio and I worried about my X-rays showing that I had cavities and the drillage it would inevitably lead to:

"You're doing a good job cleaning your teeth you just need to worker harder on your gums."God I hope I don't have cavities showing in that X-ray. "Here comes Santa Claus. Here comes Santa Claus." "Are you flossing every day?"I should've refused to let them take one. "Right down Santa Claus way.""You need to pay better attention to those teeth up front on the bottom."They're gonna drill me. I know it. "Vixen, Blitzen, all his reindeer pulling on the reins."

Elvis and dentistry are not part of my ideal afternoon. No sir.

The movie I rented about the Cuban poet is called Before Night Falls and is actually about Reinaldo Arenas who is both a poet and an author. He's also gay which is a big part of the movie. Being openly gay was part of his rebellion against Castro in Cuba. I liked it though it was a bit long with whole stretches of narration done in Spanish of which I couldn't understand a word (I assume these are some passages that Arenas wrote).

I volunteered to give blood tomorrow. It's a good thing to do. I think it's wrong to leave people bloodless, espcially during the holidays.

More Toledo today. Yeah, it's all kinds of fun. I did get the heater in my car fixed though. It turned out that the heater core needed flushed which is kinda what I suspected. It's all taken care of, which is good. I almost killed myself the last time I drove to Columbus. No heat means no way to defrost the windshield. Frost on the windshield means I can't see. And when I can't see, I can't drive well. I mean, I can still drive but it's all kinds of crazy dangerous.

I finished Last Exit to Brooklyn today. It was a pretty easy read. I enjoyed the book but it lacked a plot to really drag me into it. It's like, "Hey, check this guy out! He's really fucked up! And this chick is a whore! And this guy is a closet-case! And this guy cheats on his wife! And so does this guy..." It doesn't really get into any sort of background to make the characters feel real. The whole thing is just a literary snapshot of a hard neighborhood in Brooklyn--interesting but not involiving.

When I finished Last Exit, I started reading Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey. I got a few pages in but didn't feel like reading so I put it down and went and rented some movies. I got Hedwig and the Angry Inch which was pretty entertaining but had only one really good song in it and, in my opinion, about the same artistic merit as School of Rock which is actually not all that bad. I also rented a movie about some Cuban poet but I'm saving it for tomorrow. It's by the same director as Basquait which I really enjoyed.

I figure I'll probably put another hour into Sometimes a Great Notion tonight and maybe drink a beer while doing so. I wish I had something really strong, perhaps a Belgian, to drink tonight. Good beer goes so well with a book.

I'm in Toledo.

Yay!

Y'know, there's worse places to be than Toledo. Really. I just can't think of anywhere right now.

I saw the Movie School of Rock tonight with my folks and my little sister, Carolyn. It wasn't bad, kind of heartwarming in a way. But that doesn't change the fact that Jack Black really isn't that funny. He's not.

I had a good time in Columbus this weekend. I saw a bunch of people who I wasn't expecting to see and we drank and made merry. Good times. Good times.

I'm listening to this album 0:12 Revolution in Just Listening by Coalesce. God, it's heavy. God.

It's a powerful record.

Something about this city zaps my creative energy. I really don't have anything to say. I'm going read Last Exit to Brooklyn which is by Hubert Selby Jr. and is a pretty alright book and avoid talking to my father about my career. I'm not supposed to tell my dad about moving to Chicago until after the holiday season lest I put him in ill humor during the yuletide. Oh well, just a few more weeks then I won't have to worry about any of that shit ever again...

I've been looking for places to stay in Chicago. They're not quite as expensive as I thought but still very expensive. I don't care though. At the moment, I'd still rather live there than anywhere else in the world. I don't mind being poor. I don't. I'd rather be happy than rich. I've come to the conclusion that not only do I not care about the finer things in life (except beer), I actually want to avoid them. Luxuries are a distraction I don't need.

I've got it all worked out in make-shift, half-ass kind of way. I'm moving to Chicago. I'm gonna get some crappy job I don't have to worry about. I'm gonna write, play music, read, meet people, worry about paying rent, fall in love, and generally have a blast. It'll all work itself out. I figure if Henry Miller can bum around Paris for years without a damn cent in his pocket and become one of the greatest writers in the history of our fine country, I can bum around Chicago and have a good time.

The vast majority of people in this world are satisfied with bullshit, with going to college, with finding jobs and nice apartments, with 55 channels of cable. For the longest time, I thought I was one of these people. I'm not. I went to college. I got a degree in computer science and engineering. I could have a job right now. I really could but I never worked at it. Over time, I realized I wasn't trying to get a plush, white-collar job not because I'm lazy but because I didn't want one. A job like that feels like prison to me. I'd rather paint boat bottoms. No joke.

So I might end up poor. So I might end up jobless and hungry. So what? At least I'm trying to get away from the tedium that I've been drawn into my whole. Nobody likes rich people anyway. Seriously. J.P. Morgan was rich but he's remembered as one of the greatest assholes in history. So many artists die penniless but are loved for generations after their death. Who would you rather be?

About a dozen new beers and countless fruitfully unusual conversations later, I've returned from my trip to Chicago. I went with the wonderful Rachel and the unbelievable Liz to visit the inimitable Ian and the lovely Carrie. Good times. Good times.

I'm moving to Chicago. I've determined I'd rather eke out a living in Chicago, play in bands, and write for zines than make a lot of money working for the proverbial man. So I'm going to go to Chicago, eke out a living, play in bands, and write for zines. HA! That was an easy enough decision.

There's no work for me at the shop today so I got to leave. It's nice to be up at nine in the morning with a full day ahead of me. It's not something I do often given that I like to stay up late drinking good beer, reading or just shooting the shit with Andy or whoever else is around.

I feel really sorry for this girl, Erin, who's staying at my house. She's a sweetheart. Maybe not the most educated or well-spoken girl you'll meet but very cute and maybe more than a little sad. She collects dolphins and etched crystals that sit on colored lights. She really loves dolphins. I told her about how I once swam just a few feet away from dolphins in Florida with my mom once and how my mom wouldn't let me get any closer than that. She told me she'd have swum right up to them and splashed around with them. It made her look so happy, so serene it damn near broke my heart. I got the feeling she wanted to grab one of those dolphin's fins and let it pull way out in the ocean, a thousand miles from anything.

Erin, I think, really wants to be a dolphin. She wants to be a dolphin because her boyfriend, Justin who also lives with me, is an asshole and she has no escape from him in her current reality. There's two babies of his making in her belly.

Justin has no respect for her. He dates her because she's pretty--a vagina with two legs, two arms, and two babies in her belly that he'd rather not think about. He won't even acknowledge that there's two of 'em in there despite the findings of a medical professional. "I ain't seen 'em," he says.

This morning, she realized that Justin forgot to bring the splint for broken hand to work, woke up early, and drove all the way to the shop to give it to him. Do you know how he thanked her? "You look like hell." I almost cried it was so sad. Seriously.

What kind of twisted, karmically ignorant god creates a world like this for a sweet young woman like Erin? It's wrong on so many levels it makes your head spin. She's held hostage by two beautiful babies in her womb and the asshole that put 'em in there. Why!? I feel frustrated, impotent even, that I can't think of anyway to help her. I wish she could swim away with those dolphins and have her two babies at sea--two mer-babies that would never repeat her mistakes; never wind up with two babies in their bellies in Marion, Ohio; never be afraid of their boyfriends; never work a frustrating, unfulfilling jobs at Whirlpool; and never be tired, sad, and lonely with a with only a simian brute as their chief confidant.

This is it, world. I'm calling you out. It's time for change and you know it. No putzing around with politics or idealism. No beating around the bush, no religion, no protest, no debate. Change now! Erin has two babies in her belly and both she and them are fucked if you don't. You're killing them, all three. It's wrong, wrong, wrong. So wrong.

We need more people like Andy, my housemate, who helps raise a child that's not even his, the son of some crazy young woman he's no longer romantically involved with who apparently lives to fuck with his head. He doesn't even get laid out of the deal anymore. He loves Wesley, that's the kid's name, so he spends time with him and teaches him. He's a father to him and probably the only one he'll ever know.

Anyway, I should probably get off this crazy tirade train, given that I'm not exactly an activist. I'm not part of the problem but I'm not part of the solution either and that's just as bad. Has the time finally come for this lazy asshole to get off his duff and make a stand? Only time will tell.

I'm going to Columbus tonight and Chicago tomorrow. It's gonna be a good time.

The pit-bull that was staying at my house is gone now. She barked too much and caused a visit from the Marion PD. This, of course, was unacceptable so we shipped her off to another home where she can bark her damn fool head off. It's too bad, I liked that dog. I mean aside from all that damn barking and all.

I have two additional house-mates at the moment, Justin and Erin. They're fine people but they argue too much and it gets on my nerves and makes me feel uncomfortable in my own home. It's too bad, I like them. I mean aside from all that damn arguing and all.

I just turn up the stereo and try to ignore them. I'm listening to the Desert Sessions at the moment. The first two are awesome but they get progressively worse from there. I haven't even bothered with the last two.

I need to take a shower. I'm filthy but I'm gonna write a little bit first.

I wrote a lot yesterday. I wrote about a seven page article on home recording for The Crux of the Biscuit. It's good but it's too long and it's not all that good. Ho hum...

I need to shave; my beard itches.

A sandwich recipe:

1 onion bun
3 oz. roasted pork thinly sliced
1/4 medium onion thinly sliced
2 oz. colby jack cheese
an amount equivalent to the amount of onion of thinly sliced cabbage
hot sauce

Put the onion and cabbage closest to the buns with the meat seasoned with hot sauce and cheese in the middle. Press on a Foreman grill. Eat and enjoy.

I can't decide when I want to go to Columbus. I mean, I want to leave now but I'll end up spending an extra twenty bones or so and I need to conserve my money for my trip to Chicago. Christmas gifts are starting to take a toll on the ole bank account. Oh well, 'tis truly better than give than receive.

Well, I'm gonna get outta here. Laters.

I have two pairs of the exact same shoes. One is old the other is new. Sometimes, for a lark, I put on one old one and one new one.

I took a shower earlier and now I feel clean aside from some spots of paint I can't get off my skin easily. I'll just get 'em tomorrow. No big deal.

Blah, blah, blah...

I had chicken fingers and fries for dinner tonight. I made them in my deep fryer. If you don't have a deep fryer, get one.

A sandwich recipe:

2 slices fresh homemade beer bread.
1 6 oz. Steak
1 slice colby cheese

I think this is self explanatory except for how to make beer bread.

Beer Bread:

2 Cups self-rising flower
2 tbsp sugar
12 oz beer

Mix all that stuff up and let it sit around for a while. Put it in a greased loaf pan and cook it at 350 degrees for and hour or however long you feel like.

Yeah, I haven't been blogging so much lately. So what? I've been busy, you know, doing things. Not blogging is one of those things. Today, though, you're all in for a treat; I have absolutely nothing to say and I feel like writing.

I'm going to Chicago this weekend to visit my friend, Ian, the guy who started and edits the magazine I write for. It's an underground publication which means nobody reads it or cares about it. It also means it has a monthly budget of about five dollars. Who knows though? Maybe it will be huge, Rolling Stone huge. Maybe I'll get rich of my musings and meanderings.

Mainly, I write under pen-names. You get more freedom that way, namely the freedom to make up your own name. If I got a chance to change my name, I'd change it to something else then I'd change it back to Frank just so I could say I changed my name. Some of the worlds most famous people have changed their names so, if I change mine, I'd be famous. It all follows logically.

I got some Dogfish Head World Wide Stout this last weekend. It's a huge imperial stout that clocks in at 18.8% ABV (this year, anyway). Such a high percentage of alcohol is illegal in Ohio but this one store had it anyway. The guy at the counter knew I was a regular and I was buying other Dogfish Head brews so he offered to let me buy one. The rest, as they say, is history.

There's a pitt bull living with me now. She's the sweetest dog I've ever met. Not all pit bulls are sweet though. When I was working for Lucas County doing web design, I visited the dog wardens office since we did their web-site. The pit bulls there were mean. They wanted to kill me. These are big dogs that could easily jump over your head, by the way. It was scary. Or, rather, it would have been if they weren't in cages. I'm not afraid of anything in a cage that I'm not in.

I have not been getting enough sleep lately. I stay up late doing anything but sleeping. I don't know why. The idea of going to bed just doesn't seem appealing to me until after two in the morning so I stay up. In the morning, I have to get up for work at eight. Too early, if you ask me. I have to work until five which is too late. I think if everyone just worked maybe four hours a day, everything would go along quite smoothly, as smoothly as it is now, anyway.

Regardless of that, I resolved to go to bed a bit earlier tonight. It's 12:30 so I guess even that's a little too late. G'night.

I went to Columbus then Cincinnati this weekend. Good times all around. In Cincy, we went to a bar with one of those jukeboxes that lets you download songs. The music being played was wimpy "adult rock" crap so we popped a few quarters in and played some Sabbath. That got the place rocking. They also got pissed that we weren't tipping enough. I don't know what the hell's wrong with Cincinnati. We tip the same amount in Columbus and people think we're sweet.

You know, there's a lot of things wrong with this world not the least of which is the fact that I think the milk in my fridge has probably gone bad. I'm afraid to check though. I'll just keep it long enough that I know it's bad. That way, I won't have to check.

I finally got my Black Sabbath CD in the mail yesterday. Yes, you guessed right, it kicks major butt, dude. The grey lining to this silver cloud is that the Kyuss record I ordered wasn't in stock at the place I ordered it from so I had to re-order it and now I'll have to wait even longer to get it.

The Rolling Stones suck now and they never were that good. Get over it. They did have a few singles that were some of the best in rock and roll history but most of their stuff, even in their prime, is pretty lackluster.

My computer has a horrible flaw. Sometimes, the mouse just stops working for no damn reason. This has just happened now. I have to restart. Bye.

I've spent to much of my day engrossed in sweet science of logic. I'm tired. I want to go to bed. G'night.

I got back to working today after over a week off. I'm waxing boats for the big boat show coming up in about a month. Strangely enough, January is boat season. You'd think it be at a time of the year when people actually go boating but you thought wrong.

I like metal.

I like beer, too. I've sampled 512 to date. I often wonder how many people in this country have tasted more beers than I have. I'd say less than 5% and that's conservative. I'm only 22. By the time I'm thirty, I'll probably have tasted more beer than 99% of the world. It's something I take pride in. Seriously.

I'm addicted to two things in life. One is the taste and appreciation of fine beers (not the alcohol). The other is buying music. At the moment, beer is taking precedence. There's so damn many music nerds that it's hard to impress anybody knowing about music. Beer is so much easier. Too many people in the world assumes that Bud/Miller/Coors is the only way to go. Of the rest of people, too many are satisfied with drinking Guinness or Heineken. So many people drink so much beer and don't know a damn thing about it. It's a shame.

The same people who won't eat at McDonald's and only buy independent records will still drink only beers brewed by the largest corporations. In my opinion, if you want to be indy, if you really want to support small business rather than large corporate juggernauts, you have to drink indy. I do and I lead a more fulfilling life because of it.

Small brewers use higher quality ingredients. They use less additives and chemicals and are less likely to use genetically modified hops and malt. They're also more likely to produce beers that are unfiltered and unpasteurized. This means their beers have a little bit of sediment and haze which is rich in B complex vitamins. Craft-brewed beer is better for you and it tastes better too. Next time you're at a bar, order a Sierra Nevada, Stone, or other beer brewed by people who care about the art and craft of brewing. If you don't like it, try something else. You're bound to find a beverage more satisfying than Bud.

Well, I'm done preaching now. I'll rap with you again tomorrow.

Today has been uneventful at best.