I got back into homebrewing about half a year ago. I've made six batches since I started in October:
- Coopers Lager
- Coopers Real Ale with strawberries
- Coopers Lager with honey
- Coopers Stout with chocolate and cocoa
- Coopers European Lager
- Brewcraft Premium Belgian Ale

To make the flavoured beers I just added strawberries, honey, or melted chocolate and cocoa to the mix before adding the water. The Strawberry Ale and Honey Lager were both winners with a nice subtle flavour coming through, but the Chocolate Stout just tastes like a slightly bitter stout.

The European Lager and Belgian Stout are both a little more expensive to make (the Belgian being about twice the price of normal beer) but are better tasting. I've only had a preview of the Belgian because it's not quite ready, but it's going to be great.

None of them have been failures, but so far friends have only gotten excited about the European Lager, and that's the big test. The strawberry and honey beers also got a seal of approval, but others were not so popular. Millerine is happy to drink them, so they can't be too bad.

The main change I've made since starting is moving from 740ml plastic bottles to 330ml glass bottles. The plastic is much easier at bottling time, and I still use them when I have them, but not as sustainable, and I was just drinking too much beer. The glass bottles are free from friends and parties, are a more manageable everyday drinking size, and just seem nicer.

Anyway, at less than $10 a carton for a good to great beer, I'm not about to stop making it.

We live in a society already obsessed with consumerism and well on it's way to obsession with the environment. This is pretty funny as it leads to ads which say "Buy a hybrid Honda Civic and help save the environment." It gets better when you realise that people believe it and buy a new hybrid, selling their two year old vehicle to someone else who will probably drive it. I've done a bit of maths, and it seems to me that if you buy a new car you have one more car being manufactured, and one more car either on the road or on the scrap heap. All of these things are bad for the environment. Also you save quite a lot more money not buying a vehicle than by buying one, no matter how little fuel it uses.

It's not just cars though. So many ways to save the environment and money are sold to us. I'm not a particularly smart person, but I'm pretty sure the best way to save money is to not spend it. Less stuff = more money. And if you want to reduce your carbon footprint and waste output, stop buying stuff. The more stuff you purchase, the more stuff has to be made, and the more stuff ends up as landfill or as a pollutant.

Saving money while reducing waste is easily demonstrated with food. The more processed food you buy the more expensive it will be per goodness (due to the effort in processing) and the more waste you will have (due to the packaging). If you eat fresh you will have less waste, less processing, and it will likely be cheaper. You'll almost certainly end up healthier as well.

Here are some helpful hints for saving money and the environment:
- Instead of getting a hybrid vehicle, stop driving.
- Don't bother replacing those incandescent light bulbs with flourescent. Turn the lights off instead.
- Instead of weighing up the healthiness of a boost juice over the cheap price of coke, eat some fruit. It's cheap, and it's the stuff juice is made of.

OK, so realistically we're not going to stop spending money altogether because we want to keep a standard of living, and trade is just such an efficient way of spreading the benefits of skills and resources. Just don't think that being a heavy consumer and beneficial to the environment are compatible.

For more fun, listen to Kate Soper on alternative hedonism and read this interview with Juliet Schor about the politics of consumption.

I seem to have come across quite a number of climate change extremists recently, from both sides of the fence. Those that think the environment is so important we should ignore the financial costs in fixing it and to not do so is stupid, and those who think climate change is a myth and we should ignore the environment for the betterment of the economy. To all these people I say BOLLOCKS! Even greenies need a few dollars for accommodation and food, and even ignoring climate change the environment still needs to be preserved. The worst case scenario with climate change is pretty bad as well, so it might be a good idea to keep tabs on that one. Please don't listen to stupid arguments like this one though.

For those poo pooing the environment and saying SHOW ME THE MONEY, think about water in Australia. Recently, in Sydney, a population of over five million people went to around 30% water reserves. Ignore that, and it won't be long until people start dying. Just one of many environmental issues we face.

A lot of the people who were saying we should ignore the effect on the economy to save the environment are now too worried about losing their job to argue anymore.

I heard an interview with Freeman Dyson, a physicist, futurist and general dude who was around in the Einstein days and is still active. He's a climate change skeptic, but has some very interesting things to say on the matter. He believes that the environmental movement is akin to a very useful and good religion where followers are keen on saving the environment, which is actually a good thing. The bad thing is that there is so much emphasis on climate change many other important environmental issues are not being given the attention they deserve.

Just a side note on the video I linked to earlier in this post, he has a better video as well, but still talks a bit of shit about not requiring evidence to make the best decision.

The Melbourne Hat was on the weekend. It's one of the three big tournaments in Australia, but differs from the two national championships in that drinking beer is the main activity rather than a distant second to playing ultimate frisbee. This year playing was particularly left by the wayside due to the the 50km/hr winds and constant rain on Saturday making it almost more a game of chance than skill.

However, I had intended on being fit for this tournament and playing well. Didn't happen. I'll admit to not keeping up a stringent fitness regime, but only two weeks ago I was feeling faster and more responsive than ever. Last weekend the one day tournament completely broke me for some reason, and I was still tired by the hat. I guess being up until 3am drinking the night before the first day and 4am before the second didn't help, but catches were constantly being put down, running had to be forced out of me, and intelligent decisions were far from the norm.

The difference between the level of play when fit and alert and when physically tired and straight off a big night seems to be getting more noticeable. I've never been a star player, but I'm at a point now where my experience should be showing. I really don't want to reach a point where I'm the chump every time I play, so I'd better pick up my act.

Even so, the Hat was an awesome good time.

I'm not a big fan of corporate lift etiquette for a couple of reasons. It can make exiting the lift a study in inefficiency, and it's all about making people your bitch.

The basics of lift etiquette are fairly simple - allow women to enter and exit the lift first. It seems harmless, but the more full the lift is the harder it is to implement this. Etiquette that demands an unrealistic limit on the number and ratio of men and women in the lift is not sustainable. In a packed lift "good manners" are thrown out the window and people leave in the easiest order they can. It's not rudeness, just a better way to do it.

If there are a bunch of men in the lift, there often seems to be a bit of competition to leave last. The women have all exited and one guy is near the front insisting on being courteous and allowing all others to leave first. This guy is nearly always wearing a suit. It reminds me of Garden State, where Natalie Portman's character insists on sitting on the back of the motorbike, because "Sidecars are for bitches. Anyone who sits in the sidecar is automatically your bitch." Everyone who accepts the dude's offer to leave before him is his bitch, and you can see in his eyes that he knows it. There are usually at least two of these men, but only one of them is the king of the jungle, and the other resigns to be his bitch.
"After you."
"No after you."
"Thanks."
"That's right. You're my bitch."

It pleases me most when the lift is full and some older arrogant looking guy in a suit is holding the lift door so that everyone can get through, all the while being in the way. As I pass him I smile courteously and think "I may be your bitch, but you look like a fool."

It puts the whole politeness to women thing into perspective, but that's a rant for another day.