June 28th, 2012  --  Ready Player One

  As you are reading my blog here at dottspace you might have noticed something. Let’s see: monospaced font, text only, no images, ansii / asci art, retro BBS vibe. Yes, you can say I’m living in the past just a bit. I actually had a telnet only BBS system for years too but no one ever connected. Sad.

  What isn’t sad is that there is a book that allows me to re-live a lot of my childhood memories. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. I’ve read the book and, just as enjoyably, listened to the audio book read by Wil Wheaton.

  The book is like the 80’s all over again! It is interesting to see kids in 2044 trying to worship the stuff I did in the 80’s. Back when I was using my TI99 4/a and my Intellivision. Or the Apple ][e, Commodore 64 and various Atari computer and gaming systems at friends houses or school.

  Besides the games and computers the book remembers the music, books, authors, movies, cartoon and even the cereal that I grew up with. Its funny odd and weird to see such geeking out on the stuff of my childhood. It’s also a great read. So if you get a chance read up Ready Player One.

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(. .) Rav

June 24th, 2012  --  Make a Day Out of It

  There are two Whole Food Markets here on the island of Oahu. Neither of them are nearby. The newer one on the other side of the island is the nicest as well and has a wicked huge produce section. It’s the on I go to even though it is further away.

  So today when I went I decided to play tourist along the way. Rather than just shoot over the mountain on the H3 freeway I took the highway past Hanauma Bay and stopped off at each of the tourist highway look-outs along the way.

  It was  a fun detour to get to look out over the ocean and take in the view. You might think that is a bit crazy. Most people might say “But you LIVE on Oahu!” This is true. However they fail to remember Oahu is larger than one thinks. Also I spend all my time living in central Oahu which doesn’t have any iconic views of the ocean at all.

  Not to be a glutton on gas I did take the direct path back home. That, and I wanted to get everything in the fridge. :3

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(. .) Rav

June 19th, 2012  --  La Sorcière Absinthe Bleue

  Still in a huff about falling into the newbie mistake of buying a bad absinthe as my first bottle, I went out window shopping for great absinthe. That is a rather hard task when living on an island, even one as populous as Oahu, Hawaii. It is not that we have a lack of liquor stores. In fact there are tons and I’m sure they are all stocked by the same few companies. Even Tamuras, a larger dedicated liquor store, only had three. Nothing premium either; and over priced for the lack of quality.

  Then I happened to end up in a shopping centre in Aiea and notice a wine shop named SWAM and so I shrugged and went in. The shop was NOT a liquor store, no this was a nice wine specialty store to my surprise. And they had six bottles of absinthe. At least four of them I recognised as better than average.

  I noticed something rather nice. They had both La Sorcière Absinthe Vert and Bleue, but in the smaller half sized bottles. I picked the Bleue and can’t be happier as it was just $34 - a great deal. Compared to the crappy modern Pernod, the La Sorcière is far and away superior in all ways.

  When I get a little money I’ll need to go back and see about finding a nice verte next.

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(. .) Rav

June 15th, 2012  --  Salvaging Pernod Absinthe Supérieure

  There is a lesson to be learned when buying Absinthe and it is: Know what you are buying. I went to a local shop to get absinthe and they had three that I had never heard of before. So I bought one. The correct thing to do would have been to take a photo of them, go home and see which have the best reviews, then return and buy one if there were any good brands.

  So $62 wasted on Pernod Absinthe Supérieure; a truly awful sad excuse for an absinthe. One site, The Wormwood Society, had a review giving it a score of 2.1 out of 5. And on a lot of forums were warnings to not but this stuff.

  So what am I to do with my mistake? Well, if life gives you lemons you make lemonade. So in that mode I made Absinthe Soda.

  I own a Soda Stream which is a thing that carbonates water. I also had cream soda syrup on hand. The plot was hatched! I carbonated a litre of water. I then added 3/4th of the recommended amount of creme soda syrup and 1oz of the Pernod Absinthe Supérieure.

  The result was actually rather nice. I also have Root Beer syrup and I’ll try making and Absinthe Root Beer next.

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(. .) Rav