. Wayang with Sasha

. Half Life is Over Now...

And I meet full face on dark mornings the bestial visor, bent in by the blows of what happened to happen.

But at least birthday drinks at Nihon was fun. Thank you to everyone who came. Very special thank you to everyone who paid for my whiskeys.

Cheers!

 

. Favourite Beer of the Week

On Saturday night we were going to a dance performance at Dance Mission and we were meeting Diane first for drinks and food and Nif said where shall we go? And I said why don't we go to that place that used to be Radio Valencia at 23rd and Valencia because that's close to Dance Mission and so we went there and it was only 6 o'clock so we got a great table in the corner by the window and we had some eggplant antipasti thing and a mushroom pizza with vegan cheese, and wine and beer. Nif had the wine, I had the beer. Diane showed up later, because she had to hike and stuff.

First I had a Maudite, and then I had a Hitachino Espresso Stout, which tasted of coffee and chocolate, like a beer-mocha. Sounds disgusting I know, but it was actually rather nice, especially after the pizza, as a kind of dessert. I thought at the time that it would be a good beer to share with someone else who likes beer, but then when I was half way through it I was quite happy that Nif and Diane do not like beer at all and I had it all to myself.
Beretta (the place we were in) also serve Hitachino Espresso Stout in an icecream float. Not sure how I feel about that.

. A Decade Ago...

Welcome to an exciting new feature of the mothkettle blog called "A Decade Ago..." In it I will be reminiscing about the olden days and talking about how old I am. Now I've written that down it sounds even more exciting than when it was just in my head.

Shall we begin?

A decade ago this month, on the week of my 30th birthday, we went for a walk through Muir Woods with our friends Oliver and Victoria.

Here we can be seen struggling to keep up with new technology called the "self timer".


And here we can be seen having an invisible light saber battle.


A couple of years later I was back in Muir woods walking the coastal trail with my friend Joe, and we were asked by a middle-aged couple going in the opposite direction if we knew where the bar was. We said no we didn't know where the bar was, and after they were gone we laughed about how silly you would have to be to think that there was a bar in the middle of Muir Woods.

Turns out there is a bar in the middle of Muir Woods. So on the week of my 40th birthday we went to find it with our friends Bryce and Jenny. Here is a video documenting that historic occasion.

. mum in california

Last month my mum came to visit us. Here are some things she did.

. Favourite Beer of the Week

Ginger beer for ginger beardies.

This is one of those Kiuchi Hitachino nest beers (like this one and this one). This one is the "Real Ginger Brew" and it has ginger in it, and tastes a bit gingery. Very good on a Sunday when you're in the middle of an awfully long recipe like Mushroom Wellington with Madeira Sauce and it's 4 o'clock and the guests aren't arriving til 6:30 and it's too soon to get into the wine but you need a little something. But then afterwards you start to get tired and your wife has to finish the recipe and now it's 5:30 and you're at the computer and thinking of having a shower when you really should be helping in the kitchen and you have totally forgotten to make the mashed potatoes.

Oh dear.

. Birthday H0

Model railways are built to various scales. 0 scale (zero scale) is 1:43. So something 43 inches tall in the real world (a small child for example) becomes something 1 inch tall in model railway world. H0 (half zero scale) is 1:87. So your small child would be only 1/2 inch tall. Does that make sense? Do you honestly give a crap?

For my birthday I received this rather fabulous H0 scale Water Tower, pimped out by our splendid friend Michael Shaub. To see photos of its creation, click this.

. Forty

To celebrate my 40th birthday we are going for drinks at this place on Friday (5th of June):

http://www.dajanigroup.net/establishments/nihon-whisky-lounge/

Please join us if you have nothing better to do and enjoy spending time with old people.

Drinks and bar foods are half price before 7:30pm.

. Pending

You know who you are.

. You Are Beautiful

Random cell phone pictures while we're out & about...

. Levitation

. Favourite Beer of the Week

Like the previous Kiuchi Hitachino nest beer I tried, XH produced a big old frothy head which hung around for quite a while and gave me plenty of time to find the camera and take a picture of it.

The beer tasted a bit odd, kind of sour-ish, perhaps. It says on the back of the bottle that XH is fermented in old sake casks, so maybe that's it. Anyway, I liked it. I liked the taste, and the cute stumpy bottle, and the owl picture on the bottle top, and the bright orange colour of the beer, especially when back lit by last year's Christmas lights that we still haven't removed from the kitchen.

When should you take down Christmas lights? Ehow.com have a fascinating and highly informative six point instructional fact file on the matter. As with all of Ehow.com's tens of thousands of "How to" documents, "How to Tell When to Take Down Your Christmas Lights and Decorations" is a priceless resource for such a challenging subject. They have the problem catagorised as "moderately easy", which is more demanding than "easy" but not as difficult as "moderate". Here is a small excerpt:

"Take down your Christmas lights and decorations if your lights go out after Christmas. If your lights go out before Christmas, you’ll probably want to fix the problem. However, if they go out sometime in January, you should probably just take them down and either try to fix them next season or just buy new lights."

Thanks Ehow.com. You are great.

. This movie made Nif feel a bit strange

. Wolfie

. Cooking with Anthony

This recipe is from the Cafe Flora Vegetarian Cookbook. It's extremely tasty to eat, and relatively easy to make. And I've documented the whole thing on video, just for you.

. First Thursday

Lovely prints in a lovely little gallery. And I'm one of the lovelies.
Wander by for the opening on Thursday, or any of the other first 29 days in April.

. 120 Views

. Favourite Beer of the Week

Kiuchi Brewery is in Ibaraki Prefecture in Japan. Ibaraki is famous for making Natto which consists of sticky fermented soybeans and tastes like old socks. Do not under any circumstances let anyone trick you into eating natto. It is good for your health, and will prevent blood clots and heart attacks, but it bares very little resemblance to food and should be avoided at all cost.

Instead, why not have yourself some Kiuchi Hitachino nest beer? I had a bottle of the special "Commemorative Ale" which contains vanilla beans, coriander, orange peel, nutmeg, cinnamon, and 9% alc/vol to make it (and you) festive. It is strong, full bodied, and probably not the kind of beer you want to be drinking every day, because the spices are pretty up front, plus you have to wait 20 minutes for the froth to go down before you can drink it (even if you pour it super carefully down the side of the glass) and who's got 20 minutes a day to wait for a beer to calm down?

Not me.

Also, it has a cute owl logo.

. Coastal Branches

. Hilary

I made this film at the Royal College of Art in 1993. It is 9 minutes long and features the excellent voice of John Woodvine who was the doctor in An American Werewolf in London and Bob's dad in Bob and Rose which we thought was great but you probably didn't like because, let's face it, we're not really into the same stuff these days are we.

If you would like your very own copy of "Hilary" you can buy it here.