26 Unlimited: A philosophical exploration of the human condition

Eva and I have fallen off the bread wagon since moving from our cramped Toronto apartment and coming upon a regular supply of quality bakery bread. After Eva broke out our bread maker and baked a dense olive loaf, I decided to take a stab at something new: Sourdough. Sourdough had long been something of [...]

As the blog’s getting pretty cluttered with brewing stuff, I figured I’d add a new page (available in the header) for brewing notes! Chipping away at Life II entry, though it’s hard to find the time these days. Cheers Zac

I’ve turned the cold room into a fermentation station – got about 45 litres of beer between kegs and bottles, just kicked off 23 Litres of Sumac wine, and I’m on my 9th experimental mini-batch (using various sugars, syrups, making cider, metheglin etc). Sadly we’re down to a meager glass or two of plain mead, [...]

Some after-thoughts on the mead brewed nearly a year ago.. Opened one of the last remaining bottles of still mead last night, and polished the second last bottle of sparkling mead. I’m glad I made a very dry mead – it’s lighter on the palate and on the hangover. The mead has certainly aged gracefully. [...]

Wowza! That was interesting! Thought my ass was numb! End of the world? Welcome G20! Update: appearently that was Quebec trying to seperate!

Well, we’ve finally done it. The remaining 20 liters of mead are bottled, and it’s pretty damned tasty. Eva and I slurped down some leftovers last night, and tonight we cracked a bottle. Smooth and very similar to a full bodied white wine – a little less crisp than most whites, but with a rustic [...]

A while back, I realized a strange predicament.. I like to serve nice cocktails, and soda water is a key contributor, but I always run out and can’t really justify buying a case of it for some unknown reason (the hauling, the storing, the fact that it goes flat so fast…). For awhile, I bought [...]

“Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — [...]

I have previously posted on the distinction between Life and Nature (at least as it exists for the purposes of this discourse), as well as provided an elaboration on Nature and the Universe, but it is prudent to continue this series by exploring the subject of Life. Life – a word that we pretend to [...]

Well, it would appear that I was hasty in souring my assessment! The mead is smoothing out quite nicely; the tart acidic taste must have been either the result of a second fermentation or it could have been from sediment / the lees getting mixed up with the mead during racking. Either way, it’s been [...]

Perhaps it is a direct result of my neglect to keep posting, but things have turned foul! A little over a week after my last post I did a tasting and found the mead to be well on its way. The flavour was smoothing out and fermentation had stopped; hydrometer read 0.990- the density of [...]

I sincerely hope that the bible thumbers are wrong; the Ultimatum of Catholicism or Hell seems like the kind of lose-lose scenario that only a Catholic would willfully entertain.

Mead Week #6 When taking this weeks sample, I noticed that there’s quite a bit of lees at the bottom of the carboy, leading me to wonder whether I racked it too early, and if I should be racking it again soon.. The sample read an SG of 1000, with a temperature of 22 degrees.. It’s [...]

S.G. is 1009 at 20 degrees, meaning that fermentation is crawling (which is probably not helped by the cool nights and our absence over the long weekend – meaning little heat). A little yeasty foam has popped up in a few spots on the top of the mead and a dark yellow ring shows the [...]

The Mead progresses, but slowly – like a pack of vikings in the winter months. Hydrometer reads 1.010, meaning that fermentation has slowed to a crawl.. I’ve noticed the airlock bubbling between every 8-10 seconds, though considering that this is a much better seal (since the racking), that is probably a more significant reduction than it seems. [...]

The results of my weekly sampling: SG 1015 Temp 24 Deg Alcohol Content: approx. 9% Fermentation continues but has certainly slowed. Tasting: Sweet, slight sparkle, off yeasty tastes, slightly fruity.. Almost almondy.. Certainly some honey tones, the bitterness still exists, but has mellowed. slight notes of spices (clove, cinnamon).. Drinkable, but not great.. Certainly better [...]

The word ‘report’ is comprised of two root elements: re- which essentially means ‘again’ (ie repeat: to peat again), and port- a place of traffic or transaction (a port of entry or exit, airport, deport, import, export, USB port, portal). So what is a reporter? Someone who ports again. What does that mean? It is [...]

Updated Mead Readings: Temperature: 24 degrees (though I’m sure it’s fluctuated between 14-26 deg.. Getting cold at nights, below 10 at times) SG: 1040 Color: post-night of drinking urine (cloudy yellow). Estimated alcohol per volume: 5% Estimated final alcohol per volume: 11+/-% Initial SG… Hard to say.. I started the batch without measuring the SG.. [...]

One week in: fermentation has slowed a little; I came home to find the airlock not bubbling at all! This has happened about 2 other times and a very brief shake to stir things up has tended to get it rolling again. When opened I do see that the concoction is bubbling like a carbonated [...]

Mead: Liquid gold, supple Ambrosia, Viking punch, an easy sipping wine with a touch of the old blarney.. I recently came into possession of a few carboys, airlocks, a hydrometer, and a foodsafe bucket, the combination of which inspired me to get brewing. This comes as something of a throwback to my just-out-of-highschool job as [...]

So you bought a Mac, possibly due to my influence, and the “Blue Screen Of Death” has only been replaced by the “Spinning Wheel Of Death” (why are these things always deadly?). First and foremost – give yourself a pat on the back, at least you’re not stuck with a Dell! One of the most [...]

The below written Aug 28th, 2008. What to make of this life? I am an adventurer, an explorer, one who idolizes those who’ve broken from the mundane existence of accepting the norms and standards presented by their fleeting societies to pursue a truer form of life. I am one who acknowledges that man is an [...]

I’ve added a gallery section to the blog and am working on some other changes in formatting which should be done soon. Posts to resume soon- I promise! Between summer school, bartending school, job search, wedding planning, and all sorts of other tidbits and tedbytes time has become a coveted commodity! If you have time [...]

Please excuse the lack of recent content; I’m fighting my way out of the belly of the beast. Hope you standunder. -Z

Foreword: This is probably under-sourced and certainly expects some requisite knowledge of International developmental. It was written for coursework, holds a degree of bias, and was not initially intended for a public audience, but what the hell! You need something to read! The Fair Trade movement: a struggle towards moral markets             The Fair Trade movement [...]

Here are a few interesting videos that might make you think a little about the mind and the current global situation. I strongly recommend spending hours browsing TED for those of you who have not yet done so – it’s tantalizing and will spark your interests, whatever they are. I could post heaps more, but [...]

After over a year of escalating piracy, the Somalian buccaneers that have crippled international shipping through the region has finally been quashed. The horn of Africa can expect to see the kind of stability that has long evaded this nation recent state of anarchy due to a lack of sovereign governance. The fourteen attempts to instate a stable government [...]

I have previously discussed the distinction between Life and Nature and would now like to consider some of what the world of lifelessness entails and discuss our best guess at what lead up to the beginning of life. Nature is astounding in its scale and complexity; it is something that we are really just beginning [...]

Age 3-5: kindergarden. Endoctrination begins.Age 5-12: Primary school. Endoctrinated EducationAge 12-17: Secondary school. Some critical education begins.Age 17-21: Post secondary. Debt begins. Some critical education continues.Age 21-Adulthood: Enter labor market to repay student debt. Corporate Endoctrination begins.Adulthood-middle age: get married, have children, buy a house with a 2 car garage and 2 cars. Stay in [...]

The days of Columbus, Mackenzie, Magellan, Cartier, Hudson, Marco Polo, Shackleton and so many other adventurers have for the most part past. The modern world is not so crude a place that men of such ambition oft set out in search of such adventure; clambering aboard wooden ships and propelled by the wind to unknown lands and uncertain [...]

Mmm, another 8:30 International Development lecture! Welcome to the ‘crack of ass’ (dawn). I’m beginning to wonder about our school system.. I get the distinct feeling that the requisite conformity quells countless young persons creative potential. We benchmark success in terms of direct application and not in broad thinking nor creativity.. I can recall coming [...]

I found myself unoccupied in the early eve of this friday night and decided it was about time to make use of the raw Cocoa beans that Eva and I purchased from Chocosol last summer at the Brickworks farmers market. I took a couple handfuls of beans and threw them into a wok, heating it at a below-medium temperature. [...]

Imagine that you have been selected to send the first intentional message out into space. You are to design an image to send to alien life-forms to tell them of our existence; you are designing what we hope will be the first thing alien life forms will see of us.. So, what would you do? Maybe you’d send [...]

The bombardment of readings and assignments that I’ve been catching up on have left me sorely lacking in both free time and creative energies, and as you can see my blog has suffered as a result.. I’ve had to cut back on additional projects to get caught up on work. I must say that I [...]

There is a common mistake in everyday language of neglecting to distinguish between life and nature. We tend to speak of things being ‘natural’ as opposed to being ‘man made’, though calling anything that’s not man made natural is something of a sweeping generalization that overlooks a very important distinction between two very different things. [...]

I have recently extended my student salary to cover a Cannon Digital Rebel XT.. Though the decision may prove financially regrettable, my recent governmental ‘income’ (Tax RETURN? Yay for studenthood!) should help to offset the costs.. Now there is the more daunting task of A) learning all the ins and outs of this beautiful hunk of machinery (it’s [...]

Written 07/24/05 Hunter S Thompson is Dead. The Doctor is out. Lono has left again. How did this happen? After all his years fighting against the indeterrable course of America did he finally give up? had he seen so many atrocities that he could no longer bear witness to the whoremonger who was leading the [...]

In an effort to improve the layout of this blog for an optimal reader experience, I have added a few different pages that will be updated periodically. You should now see Published Articles, Poetry, and Entertaining Videos under the Pages heading on the right. I’ll try to get more material up soon, as I have [...]

Have you ever sucked on a lemon and thought to yourself “This tastes like the most sweet and delicious lemon-drop candy I’ve ever had”? How about following that with a glug of ordinary red wine that strangely enough tastes like Manischewitz? Ever eat a tangerine that was so sweet you would swear that it was [...]

March 3rd was a square root day, (3/3/9 –> 3×3=9) Today is Friday the 13th. Tomorrow is Pi Day. “Pi day?” you ask, “What the hell is that? Is this just another one of those rip-off math freak nerd days?”. My answer: Yes it is. Check it out!

Thanks for stopping in! So what the heck is 26 Unlimited? It is my quest to push the seemingly infinite capacity of these twenty-six arbitrary symbols that comprise the entirety of the english language; to twist and distort them, challenge common ways of thinking about them, and to rant and rave along the way. We [...]

We stood about in the immaculate tenth-floor boardroom reserved for executive hog-roasts and other prestigious events. Lavishly adorned with comfy couches, fine oak tables, a lovely fireplace, and further boasting a spacious and exclusive patio. Half a dozen commoners had been granted the privilege of sharing lunch with a crack-team of executives, the big cohunah, [...]

Mankind has been blessed with a mind like none other on this earth. Our intelligence bestows upon us a bedazzling capacity for creativity, rationality, adaptability, objectivity, and understanding. One might expect such a thoughtful being to have evolved a benevolent society governed by mutual benefit, foresight, sustainable practices and harmonious and synergy with nature; a [...]