Flocculation Friday

I liked Pliny best, although Heady Topper was good out of the can.

You know you're in a room full of nerds when a west coast vs east coast IPA stand-off includes a demonstration and lecture about yeast flocculation. We had an Englishman present during the libations, leading to jokes about how the Brits flocculate when abroad.

Last night's beer-tasting played out like the last panel of The Oatmeal's comic about extremism. We didn't talk about outer space while drinking microbrews, though--we mostly joked around and ended the night watching YouTube videos.

Of course, we had to tell The Engagement Adventure, which will be up in comic form next week! (Check back here for links, or stalk my work at fragrantelephant.com.)

Know what else is undergoing flocculation right now? The subcutaneous fat in my abdominal region. Just kidding! In biology, that actually means the asexual aggregation of microorganisms. I have no idea what that means. I just wanted to sound smart.

So in conclusion: flocculation.

Happy Friday!

The Monday Night Sake Bomb

sapporo da: a haiku

wa ga sapporo
nonde yo nonde
hebereke da.

(I am Sapporo.
Drink, drink.
You're dead drunk!)

Note: In Japanese, "nonde" is three syllables: "noh"-"n"-"de." Thus, my haiku works.


Here are some fun facts:

• The Sapporo can is super strong because if its shape and its corrugated-ness. Do not crush on your forehead.
• One super can contains 22 oz of 5.2% alcohol.
• I weigh 51 kg and spent 1.5 hours consuming 2 full cans of Sapporo, with 2 shot glasses of sake.
• The percentage of my body that can absorb alcohol is around 0.65.
• That means: my blood alcohol level last night was 0.144%, waaay above the 0.08% legal limit.
• Obviously, the legal limit should be raised. 
• Or, I should realize that one sake bomb is enough for me, given my pathetic lightweight drinking ability.

Now, when one is drunk, one must do something stupid, or at least ill-advised. Encouraged by the alkihol coursing merrily through my system, I finally wrote a response to someone from my old company who had asked me what the hell was going on that made me leave. Fortunately, three of my friends were on gchat, and they graciously agreed to proofread despite the late hour. One recommended that I "release a manifesto" (too much work), another said that my email was "boom boom boom to-the-point," and the last one said "dayom u are very eloquent." Thank you, ladies. U r all awesome.

To distract myself from the niggling fear that the email would make the rounds and reach evil management, I watched The Daily Show with Leyma Gbowee as guest. You know, the Liberian Nobel Peace Prize winner who kicks ass. Woman was big and strong and proud and articulate and a HERO. I wanna be her when I grow up. She talked about being angry, about pouring water into an angry container and having that water become shaped like anger. Roar!, shouted my soul. Fight injustice!, cried my heart. Get me back in bed!, wept my body.

First things first. I'm now nursing a cup of Dunkin' Donuts coffee, black as night and bitter as my soul, because holy Lord, when I woke up I wished I hadn't. I have consumed a jelly donut, which ordinarily I would ignore, even if offered for free. I feel a little better.

Now to cry at my desk. I mean that literally. I'm reading heartbreaking stuff here, and it's my job. Waaaahhhhhh. In a good way.

Funny stuff

Managed to wheedle my way into getting some beer, finally. Here is HUNTER, the "local" beer, but really it's based off Foster from Australia. I'm buzzed so I'm not sure if I'm making this up or not, but the facts are that this beer is mine and it is tasty.

Speaking of facts, the Nobel laureate hullabaloo is at a fever pitch, with yet another court delay adding some delicious uncertainty to the proceedings. Yes, it's not fun if you think your job's on the line (like most folks in the Y Centre), but I am conditioned to believe that I can be fired based on my boss' mood, and so have become very Zen about this whole "job" business.

This brings us to today's Lesson of the Day: the grass is seriously green on the other side of the fence. I fantasize about being jobless and just bumming around all day. But I am now old enough to know there is truth in the saying, "Be careful what you wish for (you just might get it)" -- the phrase in parenthesis comes from a Pussycat Dolls song. Anyway. Here, I go to meetings at embassies, which might sound Glamorous or A Heavy Responsibility, but really they could just send along a cardboard cutout of a penguin and it would achieve the same effect. Ho ho ho.

Still, there are perks, yesterday's being a certain top diplomatic official's random tangent. I was at [CENSORED] yesterday, and the guy was like, "Oh my assistant is alone here, he's looking for a girlfriend," which immediately made me think of that comedy sketch "Nail Salon," where the first question the customer gets asked is, "You have boyfriend?" Haha, what is this obsession with a significant other?

Still, I kind of get it. After being single for a year now, I'm starting to get really weirded out by the idea of intimacy. I'm like, what, we have to share bathrooms? Ewwww. Give me a fluffy kitty any day. Speaking of which, I miss my little girl. It's just not the same, sleeping all the way to 7 am without having whiskers shoved up my nostrils at 5 am.

ACK STUDENTS JUST CAME IN AND I HAVE ALCOHOL BREATH NOOOOOOO

Blog post done for now.