CrashOctopus Blog

Our local Beverage Resort recently got a bunch of new beers from Dogfish Head Brewery. We tried two; only one could qualify as a dark beer. They have a bunch, though, and with cool names like Lawnmower Light, plus their rockin’ shark logo, I’d suggest giving the others a try (if you don’t mind light beer).

Dogfish Head Raison d’Etre was tasty. According to the almighty Wikipedia, its name translates to “the reason for existence.” This seems a bit presumptuous, but it matches their website’s attitude, which also recommends drinking this beer from a goblet or snifter. Since Nathan and I are more walk-around-barefoot-outside people than OMG-my-goblets-don’t-match-my-china-pattern people, we just drank it straight from the bottle.

Anyhow, although this beer is technically ale, it’s really sweet and dark. It’s slightly sugary and reminiscent of raisins, which might be what’s on the label, although I think they look like coffee beans. Not a remarkable dark beer, but pleasant, and I’d recommend it.

Ratings

M: 8.5

N: 8

Most of the beers I’ve posted have been good. Time for a disappointment. Although it is not a stout or porter, we picked up Shiner 97 Bohemian Black Lager because of the word “black.” Some very good dark beers are labeled simply as “black,” not stout or porter. But this beer really is a lager, and has almost no dark beer qualities. It tastes just like a light beer, but with heavy undertones. Conclusion: although it might be a good lager (I don’t really know), we won’t be buying it again.

M: 4
N: 4

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Gouache Underpainting, the Final Chapter

I admit to being a complete newbie when it comes to 1) painting 2) color and 3) portraits. So I really didn’t know what I was doing. I chose some colors that I thought would make a good skin tone, and mixed them willy-nilly. I ended up with a color that would look good on a tropical parakeet… but I wasn’t going to throw out all that paint. So forgive the ultra-tanned sheen that makes Grandpa look like he’s a snorkel instructor in Tuvalu.

I attempted to paint over Left Grandpa. I mixed four values with this shade, but added some blue into the darks for a more interesting contrast. I mixed a few shades of suit and hair color as well. And I painted over.
I forgot to paint the glasses. Anyway, You can see that on the face, the underpainting didn’t show through at all. I used opaque mixes for the face, and although the underpainting was a good guide, it didn’t do much else. It was great to paint on something other than white, though. On the suit, I used a much more transparent mix, and the underpainting showed through.
Here are some of the techniques I used. You can see the results – not too great. Dry brush looks terrible. Add water and it gives nice texture. Scrubbing an area lifts like nobody’s business.

So I learned how to make it work, but didn’t much like the results. Lesson: if you make the second layer transparent enough for the underpainting to show through, it tends to lift. Therefore, my actual painting of grandpa will use a watery wash as the underpainting, so I am not painting on white. From this experiment, mostly I learned what not to do.

Let’s start with a good one. Xingu is one of my favorites. It’s a Brazilian “black beer” that has a light, sweet taste. It’s medium-bodied, but doesn’t leave that heavy, filmy feel in your mouth like most dark beers. It’s very smooth, no tang, and almost no aftertaste (you know, the bitter one that comes with most stouts & porters). Ratings (10 = I’d be happy if I died right now, 1 = nearly yakked):

M: 10
N: 8

I should note that the “I’d be happy if I died right now” sensation wore off after the beer was gone.

(edit: link to Xingu)

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This weekend has been an adventure in scanning slide film. I bought the fancy scanner that would do it well (Epson 4990 Photo). It’s a great scanner. However, the quality of the scanner is only as good as the software that you use with it (and vice versa). So… it came with Photoshop elements, which of course doesn’t work in Linux. The program I found, xsane, is a very good substitute. It doesn’t auto-crop the slides, but it scans transparencies well. The color correction, however, sucks pumpkins. Big ones. It illuminates the slides fairly well, but everything looks all magenta, so it took hours to correct them all. And there were a few great slides I cut out of my portfolio because I couldn’t get the damned scanned file to look like the slide.

The lesson: Ask the lab to scan them onto a CD for you. It’s worth the extra five bucks. Believe me. It’s nice to know I could do it myself if I had to, but it’s just not worth the effort… and they do it better anyway.