Homebrew: Boskeun

This is my interpretation of Boskeun which is a Belgian Easter beer:
---------------- (for 5 gallons:)
13.5lb Belgian 2row Pale
.6lb (40L*) crystal malt
5oz Belgian aromatic
(single stage extraction 150F for 90 min) sparge till 6 Gallons.

1lb clear belgian candy sugar
1.1 oz Kent Goldings (from start of boil)

after 45mins add:
.4oz czech Saaz
.5 oz sweet orange peel
1 tsp irish moss

after 12 minutes add:
.5 oz sweet orange peel
.25 tsp crushed grains of paradise
Done @ 60.

Wyeast 3944 Belgian Whit @ 68-72 (room temp at the time)

This beer takes 3-4 weeks to ferment because of all the sugar..
Transfer to secondary when ready.. Lager for 2-3 weeks
Bottle with 1/2 cup honey 1/2 cup corn sugar
Best after another 3 weeks.
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This is a delicious beer. If you like Belgians, I highly recommend it. If served to early it's very sweet, so give the yeast plenty of time to work.
I think next time I would add a little more hops to offset the sweetness of the beer.

Bloody Mary

I love a good bloody mary, and I've never found a pre made mix that really did it for me so today I made my first from scratch mix.
1- 46oz can of tomato Juice.
30ish Oz Calmato
1/2 white onion
3 cloves garlic
1 cup cilantro
1/2 cup fresh lemon
3 tbl Horseradish (Beaver extra hot)
3 Tbl Worsch
3 tsp celery salt
2 Tbl spoon Chaloula (hot sauce)
1.5 tbl fresh ground black pepper.
2 stalks celery
1 beef bullion cube

Blend everything but the tomato and clamato.

This is actually not hot at all.. The majority of the spice is supposed to come from the spiced vodka (1/5th vodka + 3 habanero peppers (no seeds) 2 tsp chipoltle 2 tsp pepper corn)
I was affraid it would be too salty, so I blended in the celery stalks, but it came out just fine.
It could use a little more spice, and Worsh if you like a lot in your mary. I would have added more beef, but it came in a cube with a ton of salt..

How big?

I've seen links to this on a couple blogs, so I think the concepts here are resonating with quite a few people....
http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2007/06/20/eta-car-tick-tock-tick-tock/
I hope I get to see this in my lifetime, but I'll go over the highlights:
Humongous star (Eta Carinae) 7500 Light years distant, has almost certainly already gone Super Nova and the news just hasn't reached us yet. Once it does, it will probably be as bright as the full moon. Which is pretty impressive in itself (being so very far away).. Impressive point number two:

"Note that the lobes appear to be tilted away from us by about 40 degrees or so. That’s a good thing. When stars like Eta Carinae explode, they tend to shoot of beams of energy and matter that, at its distance of 7500 light years, could kill every living thing on Earth. But since it’s pointed away from us, all we’ll get is a spectacular light show. If you’re keeping score at home, gamma-ray burst aimed at you = bad, pretty supernova with no accompanying high energy radiation = good."

Think about being on the losing side of that one: Just like that, everything you know is gone because of something that happened 7500 years ago, 7500 light years away, and there wouldn't be a thing you could do to stop it. Try to imagine how a society would function while staring down the barrel of that gun...

More Drugs please.

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the price of a gram of cocaine in Los Angeles fell from $50 to $100 per gram in 1999 to $30-$50 in 2005. Prices are down in New York, Seattle and Atlanta. White House Drug Czar John Walters recently admitted that street cocaine prices fell by 11 percent from February 2005 to October 2006.
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Those consumer prices are not falling. It takes a Washington-born government program -- designed to drive up the price of cocaine -- to drive down the cost of cocaine.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/06/12/EDGGTP3G001.DTL