perfidy

This amuses me so much, I'm going to dance on the dessicated corpse of fair-use, and post it in its entirety:

Iraq Constitution Approval Another Setback for Bush
by Scott Ott

(2005-10-25) -- In yet another setback for the Bush administration, Iraqi electoral officials announced today that voters have approved the new Iraqi Constitution by a margin of 78-to-21 percent.

This new bit of bad news will likely drive President George Bush's popularity ratings into the single digits, according to an unnamed expert from a non-partisan, progressive political think-tank.

"The Bush foreign policy continues to be fatally-wounded by clarity of purpose, dogged persistence and a pathetic failure to capitulate in the face of opposition," the source said. "At a time when a real leader would be paralyzed with self-doubt over the meaningless deaths of 2,000 American troops, Bush continues to act as if freeing 25 million Iraqis from decades of oppression, torture and death is somehow worth the price paid by those who volunteered to fight."

"It's sad to watch our international credibility crumble like this," the anonymous policy expert said. "In 2008, I'm afraid you're going to see voters leaving the Republican party in droves, desperate to find a leader who provides a stronger sense of nuance and ambiguity."

Ken, the lovable (and red and scratchy) Brickmuppet, has gone completely overboard in responding to one of my comments on his earlier space post. Brickmuppet's first post was about NASA's new Constellation project - which intends to build a disposable crew capsule that is eerily similar to the Apollo capsule of forty years past. But bigger! With electronics! Brickmuppet was excited about this development. But then he's a wet-behind-the-ears youngster of 35. But with the vast experience and jaded cynisism that my 36 years have given me, I have less reason for joy. I think that NASA is congenitally unable to conceive, let alone design and operate, a functional manned space program leading to a permanent presence in space achieved through lowered cost of access to orbit. In short, not gonna happen, and I don't like the dry itchy feeling of NASA blowing smoke up my ass with a sixties retro space program spun as exciting and new developments in space.

Honestly, I'd like to believe that this was cool, and would lead to something good. But I just can't. Brickmuppet followed up on my comment with an extensive and well researched post. I've started posts like his, but depression and ennui generally kill the project after a few minutes. He even throws in a pic of what he somehow knew that I would love to see more than anything else. I steal and present it here:

But Brickmuppet's obsequious (but welcome) praise will not distract me from my goal:

The great and wise Buckethead

You can't use the Jedi mind trick on me, I am immune to your powers.

His arguments are not without merit.

From gushing praise to damning with faint praise in one paragraph! Sheesh!

The thing is, everything Ken says short of the last few paragraph supports my argument that NASA is unfit and incapable of doing what they claim they are going to do with Constellation. We're sympatico on that. Where I disagree is with his belief that Constellation will not adversely effect private space development. NASA has always viewed the private sector as a competitor. Further, Constellation will compete with private launch, not just because NASA will try to block private development, but because private devlopment will be hindered by the availability of subsidized manned space flight. And further further, NASA is so repugnant to me because they won't do what's right, and won't let anyone else do it either. This is the classic endstate of a bureaucratic organization.

A lot of people have been slagging heavy lift, for little reason. In fact, that very topic is one of the posts I couldn't finish because it made me cry. It's not so much that there's a problem with the hardware - shuttle components could easily be configured into a reasonable heavy lift vehicle, as I've stated here before. The problem is that, up til now and for the foreseeable future, NASA will own those components. The only solution is to kill NASA and release those designs as open source hardware. Other people could make better, and more innovative use of them; and not spend billions in infrastructure and labor costs to use them just three times a year.

Is the NASA architecture viable economically? Is it spiffy and cutting edge? No.

But private industry will be, and they will compete and try new and risky things to tap into the space market. The constellation retro-rockets are a temporary fix, and a means of jump starting a manned space program that was boldly going nowhere.

In a generation NASA will be buying its spacecraft from the same companies that will be building them for space hotels, asteroid mining companies and even colonists heading to the Moon, Mars, the asteroids,and maybe Titan.

Exactly. That's why the Constellation is so much wanking. If it never flies, its useless. If it does, it's either pathetically redundant next to Rutan's SpaceShipFour or whatever - or it kept that ship from flying.

[wik] I forgot to mention, Brickmuppet hits the nail on the head with this one, too. Talking about Space-X's antitrust lawsuit against the big aerospace companies, BM says:

This could break open the door to commercial space...or nail it shut

That's good and bad. On one hand, the ambiguities of the current situation could really be in favor of the small space startups. If this goes badly for Space-X, then the future spins clockwise out of the picture.

Alert readers will have noted that the countdown timer to your right is now counting up. I ordered Civilization IV from Amazon on the understanding that I would recieve the game yesterday. Five minutes ago, I logged into Amazon to find out, as they say, "Where's my stuff?"

Amazon is still under the impression that I will receive my package on the 25th:

Corksucking Iceholes. I want my civ, dammit!

[wik] Farging Bastiches! I just checked my account and the picture is exactly the same as the one above. Those fucktards are still guessing that I'll get my game on the 25th.

The pennant race in the deranged dictator division is heating up. Iran, perpetual second place finisher in a division dominated for decades by league titan North Korea, has instituted some key lineup changes in hopes of displacing the defending champs. Kim Jong Il has led his team to victory for year after year with cunning diplomatic strategy composed of equal parts bald-faced lying, last minute appeals to charity and simple bugfuck craziness. This is a tough combination to beat, especially considering that the NK team has two to eight nukes batting clean-up.

Iran has not taken a pennant since 1979, when in a storied inter-league game, they beat the Superpower league's USA with a ballsy hostage taking play. Things might have ended badly for the Iranian underdogs, but a welcome assist from a sandstorm and below par coaching on the American side proved sufficient for the big win. Since the glory days of the first few years after expansion team Iran joined the DDD, it has been frustrated hopes and horrific casualties. An eight year slugfest with division rivals Iraq allowed North Korea to coast into division leadership year after year.

This season, things are looking up for the Iranians. With Iraq knocked clear out of the division by some superb play by both the Americans and the British, Iran has only one team to beat. With North Korea on the ropes thanks to a concerted diplomatic effort from regional rivals and the Americans, and the American military team locked in an extended playoff with nutbag religious fundamentalist splodeydopes league champs Al Qaida, now is the time for the big play.

This sets the stage for today's match up. Iranian coach Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, told a group of students at an anti-Israel event today that Israel must be "wiped off the map" and that attacks by Palestinians will destroy it. Enough crazy talk like that, and the Iranians might have a shot at the pennant. Anti-Zionism has been a reliable strategy for the Islamic members of the DDD for half a century. But the game isn’t over yet. Iran, eager to match North Korea's hitting power in the middle of the lineup, is going for nukes.

This is a dangerous move in any match-up with the canny and ruthless Israelis. Astute watchers of the game will remember the last time a DDD contender tried that play against Israel's fearsome defense. It's a bold move for Iran, but the smart money is on Israeli strike planes over Iran's Natanz uranium enrichment plant by year's end, ending Iran's bid to reach the top of the division – and clearing the way for yet another championship for North Korea.

There are some things I will never get. Scientology. Necco wafers. Feet as a food, be they pig or chicken. The Da Vinci Code. The enduring appeal of Jessica Simpson's music (the appeal of her butt I get).

One thing that constantly eludes my understanding is the continued success of modern R&B. Well, I understand why it's popular; it's good to have sex to, but I just don't get it. I try, oh God, I try. I frigging love funk, crunk, and hip-hop from Brooklyn, Compton, Houston, Atlanta, St. Louis, Chicago, Miami, Jamaica and France. I adore Chacka Khan, Luther Vandross, Marvin Gaye, Al Green, Mary J. Blige, and Beyonce. But a lot of the time, when the temp slows down, I get lost.

R&B has become an impoverished genre over the last twenty years. Although there are some signs of life, since the mid-80s it has been dominated by singers who oversing every line, make every word a payoff and every song a three-minute orgasm rather than laying back and establishing a groove, a melody that will support all the million melismatic notes that singers carelessly spatter all over the modern R&B landscape.

R&B duets are notable mainly for being an opportunity for two singers to circle each other, egging each other on past any sense of melody with moans, runs, and ad libs over an interchangably generic music bed (can't forget the windchimes!). Used to be, this was a hallmark of the gospel style, but years of overuse by thousands of talented but tasteless songbirds have blunted what impact it once had. The key insight is in a quote from blogcritics founder Eric Olsen, who wrote about Mariah Carey: "the essence of Mariah's problem and why she is doomed to suck is that she sings to serve her own ego, not the song: great singers respect the song above their own glorification." Of course, the best is still the best: Luther Vandross was and will remain the king of bedroom R&B. However, he practically invented the style, a distinct advantage over subsequent practitioners who seem bent on sucking all the life out of it.

What brings all this to mind is the recent release of a new Gerald Levert duets compilation, Voices. Gerald Levert is the son of O'Jays founder Eddie Levert and one of the longtime big players on the modern R&B scene. Voices collects duets from throughout his career, featuring guests like Kelly Price, Faith Evans, Vanessa Williams, Missy Elliott, Teena Marie, and Eddie Levert, Sr., as well as three new songs. Not being very familiar with Gerald Levert, I was optimistic that there would be something here I could get into.

Gerald Levert is an amazing singer, both technically gifted and emotive, with a voice that hits the spot perfectly when he remembers to exercise restraint. The trouble comes when he forgets. On the one non-duet selection on Voices, "I Like It," Levert sings the song halfway to straight, and the result is halfway to great. But in general he too succumbs to the showy, sugary tendencies of modern R&B. One reason, surely, is because without the oversinging, there would be nothing left of the songs. Without good material, all the crying in the world is just for show. I'm sure Gerald Levert and his guests would beg to differ, but the sad fact is that if you took the ego out of most of the performances here, the underlying songs are so trite and lightweight that they would just melt away. Whether it's with Faith Evans, Keith Sweat, Coko, and Missy Elliott on "All the Times" or with his father on "Wind Beneath My Wings," the sappy production and one-note (so to speak) vocal performances sometimes edge very close to self-parody, wasting a great deal of talent in the process.

The backing tracks are halfway to parody too: always with a snare drum burdened with miles of reverb, the synth piano, the canned strings, and the omnipresent tingly windchimes to announce every chorus. Sometimes there is a dash of hip hop, but in general there is little to dilute the sappy lyrics and cascades of unnecessary notes.

A few of the songs are okay enough taken individually, but when collected in one place they all smear together into a long numbing sugar coma. By the sixth song in, I'm checking to see if the disc has started over again, and by the tenth I never want to hear another windchime as long as I live. By the time we get to the cover of the omnipresent and overdone "I Believe I Can Fly," I'm running to dig out my Al Green records to see if I can still remember a time when they made good music to make love to your old lady by.

I know there's an audience out there for Gerald Levert's music, just like I know there's an audience for Dragonball Z, Tommy Hilfiger, and those street basketball videos they push on basic cable. Any members of that audience who happen past this review will undoubtedly try to persuade me with poor spelling and non sequiturs that I just don't get the genius. I'll save you the trouble, kids. I try to get it, given my tastes I probably should get it, but I don't get it and I don't care. Voices puts me to sleep, and on the only occasions I'd ever have cause to put this in, I, *ahem* really don't want to be sleeping. If Gerald Levert ever makes an album without windchimes, I'll check it out. But until that time, I'll have to content myself with worn out corny old R&B like "Sexual Healing" and "Here And Now."

Cindy Sheehan, who has already seriously abused the fifteen minute rule for fame, has vowed to chain herself to the White House Fence until all the troops are brought home. I had some sympathy for her when she first appeared on the scene. No longer. To insist that all the troops be brought home immediately - in defiance of any logic or strategic considerations - is merely petulance.

I'm sure her son would be proud of the use to which she's put his memory.

When soul legend Solomon Burke returned from obscurity in 2002 with Don't Give Up On Me, he was singing material by some of the greatest songwriters of the last half century: Dan Penn, Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, and Nick Lowe among them. But with the exception of Van Morrison and Dan Penn, the names under the titles weren't exactly the first that come to mind when soul music is the topic. What elevated their offerings from genre exercises or curiosities to near-perfection were Burke's performances. His soaring gospel-soul tenor cut straight to the narrative heart of each song, making each a grand drama of loss, love, or tribulation. It was a thrilling return to fame for Burke, and especially surprising for how different it was from the gospel-infused soul rave-ups that he rode to fame in the 1960s. In a more expansive and sedate setting with a slate of (mostly) excellent new songs, we saw a new side of a great old artist.

It now seems that that album's success was due not only to Burke but to white-boy producer Joe Henry who picked the songs and helmed the sessions. Henry, who has also engineered and produced for quirky acts like Kristin Hersh and Jim White and has released numerous albums of his own, made Don't Give Up On Me a warm and cozy sounding album that put the spotlight right where it needed to be - on Burke's powerful tenor - and leaned instruments right up against that marvelous instrument where need be. Relying mainly on piano and organ, acoustic guitars, quiet kit drums, and hushed backup singers, Henry created a gorgeous, lo-fi old school vibe with the one-band/one-room sound that recalled the glory days of Motown, Memphis, and Muscle Shoals, but with a twist. Henry seems to have realized that trying to ape the sound of classic Stax or Atlantic sides is a sucker's game. Instead, he settled on a sparse, intimate production that sounded classic but was in reality all new and all his own.

Now Joe Henry is producer of the new compilation album I Believe To My Soul, a project which raises the stakes immensely on Don't Give Up On Me. For this album Henry recruited not one but five great voices of soul music: Ann Peebles, Irma Thomas, Mavis Staples, Allen Toussaint, and Billy Preston. All five, though not household names, are legends of Southern soul, among the greats of the genre. Together they bring their strengths in straight sanctified gospel, percolating funk, gritty R&B, New Orleans muck, and classic Memphis soul into one new creation that, although soul has been around for fifty years, sounds as fresh and new as if it were born yesterday.

It's like a ninja movie. Ann Peebles came out of the Memphis scene in the early 1970s and is best known for her hit "I Can't Stand The Rain," her powerful voice, and her mastery of Crane Style kung fu and judo. Irma Thomas, the Queen of New Orleans Soul (a title bestowed by the city), has been bubbling under for more than forty years, recording excellent sides that never achieved national success. Her secret weapons are her restraint, taking her performances from a whisper to a scream, and her deadliness with the katana. She is master of Dragon style kung fu. Mavis Staples is best known as the lead vocalist for the Staples Singers ("I'll Take You There"), and her mastery of rhythm and phrasing is without equal. Her weapon of choice is the matched sais and her kung fu style is Snake. Billy Preston has been playing professional music since the age of ten, and his abilities led him to be a session player on the Beatles' Let It Be and to later chart success with several 70's funk-soul hits. He is a master of stealth, poison, and Drunken Boxing. Allen Toussaint is the Master, a grey eminence of New Orleans music who produced Irma Thomas, the Meters, Lee Dorsey, Patti Labelle, and Doctor John, penned numerous hits, and has recorded several albums of his own. He is a master of Dragon style, t'ai chi, and the secret art of ninjitsu. Brought together by a mysterious warlord named Joe they are: The Soul Patrol. Cue theme music and flashy title sequence.

With incredible talent like this the best thing to do is to get out of the way. Joe Henry is smart enough to do just that, laying down low-key skeletal tracks embellished by Toussaint's keyboards, horns, well-placed guitar rhythms and perfectly done backup vocals. His vocabulary as a producer is deep, allowing him to support a song with old-style gospel backup or with Meters-inspired funk as the situation demands. The song selections range from old soul and gospel chestnuts to Bob Dylan, and Henry does his best to make that diversity work in his favor, showcasing each singer's particular strengths with the choice of material.

After all this buildup, I can say without exaggeration that I Believe To My Soul is the best new album I have heard this year, and possibly this decade. Every single song is an instant classic performance, thirteen black-belt exhibitions of the deepest, most beautiful, most sanctified soul music to be made since the golden era of the genre. Purists might sneer at the inauthenticity of Hardy's warm and intimate production and the Starbucks-readiness of the marketing campaign, but purists be damned. This is one amazing, transcendent, spectacular album that deserves to be in as many lives as possible.

If I had to pick one high point, it would have to be Ann Peebles' otherworldly reading of Bob Dylan's "Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You," a performance so powerful, so beautiful, that it almost broke me down the first time I heard it, and keeps breaking me down every single time since. But that's practically an arbitrary choice. Billy Preston's burbling Philly-via-New Orleans "As One," Irma Thomas' gorgeous and plaintive "Lovin' Arms," Mavis Staples' intense "You Must Have That True Religion," or Allan Toussaint's unspeakably funky instrumental "Turvalon" are each candidates for 'best song,' and those four choices are ultimately arbitrary as well. How often does an original album come along that is composed of nothing but high points?

It's possible that I'm the only person on the planet moved in this way by I Believe To My Soul, but I'd bet against that. The liner notes to the album indicate that this is the first volume in a planned series of similar releases. Even if future installments fall short of this first one (and how could they possibly measure up?), Joe Henry is amassing a track record as a producer to watch, a true believer of rare talent and discernment. If he keeps it up, we might be able to say his name in the same breath as Jerry Wexler, Phil Spector, George Clinton, and Quincy Jones as producers whose names inspire awed reverence among a segment of the music-loving public. Keep it up, Joe.

A portion of the proceeds from sales of I Believe To My Soul will go to fund Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.

Mapgirl found IMDB's list of the 100 greatest movies, along with a meme to indicate which you have seen and not seen. This I have done, and as an added bonus, indicated with an asterisk which movies on the list I own. I was rather surprised to discover that I have seen every single one of the top thirty, and 43 of the top fifty. That's a lot, I think. My total count was 82 out of 100. My list is below the fold:

I included links for the first fifty, then got tired of that shizzle.

I don't know why the table appears so far down, but scroll a bit, it's there.

What if WWII had been a real time strategy game? It might have gone something like this in the early stages:

deGaulle: eisenhower ur worthless come help me quick
Eisenhower: i cant do **** til rosevelt gives me an army
paTTon: yah hurry the fock up
Churchill: d00d im gettin pounded
deGaulle: this is fockin weak u guys suck
*deGaulle has left the game.*
Roosevelt: im gonna attack the axis k?
benny-tow: with what? ur wheelchair?
benny-tow: lol did u mess up ur legs AND ur head?
Hitler[AoE]: ROFLMAO
T0J0: lol o no america im comin 4 u
Roosevelt: wtf! thats bullsh1t u fags im gunna kick ur asses
T0JO: not without ur harbors u wont! lol
Roosevelt: u little biotch ill get u
Hitler[AoE]: wtf
Hitler[AoE]: america hax, u had depression and now u got a huge fockin army
Hitler[AoE]: thats bullsh1t u hacker
Churchill: lol no more france for u hitler
Hitler[AoE]: tojo help me!
T0J0: wtf u want me to do, im on the other side of the world retard
Hitler[AoE]: fine ill clear you a path
Stalin: WTF u arsshoel! WE HAD A FoCKIN TRUCE
Hitler[AoE]: i changed my mind lol
benny-tow: haha

Stalin runs into some problems with his non-aggression pact:

Stalin: church help me
Churchill: like u helped me before? sure ill just sit here
Stalin: dont be an arss
Churchill: dont be a commie. oops too late
Eisenhower: LOL

Hitler has some interface issues:

paTTon: coming to get u hitler u paper hanging hun cocksocker
Stalin: rofl
T0J0: HAHAHHAA
Hitler[AoE]: u guys are fockin gay
Hitler[AoE]: ur never getting in my city
*Hitler[AoE] has been eliminated.*
benny~tow: OMG u noob you killed yourself
Eisenhower: ROFLOLOLOL
Stalin: OMG LMAO!
Hitler[AoE]: WTF i didnt click there omg this game blows
*Hitler[AoE] has left the game*

Roosevelt leaves, Truman enters:

*tru_m4n has joined the game.*
tru_m4n: OMG OMG OMG i got all his stuff!
tru_m4n: NUKES! HOLY **** I GOT NUKES
Stalin: d00d gimmie some plz
tru_m4n: no way i only got like a couple
Stalin: omg dont be gay gimmie nuculer secrets
T0J0: wtf is nukes?
T0J0: holy ****holy****hoyl****!
*T0J0 has been eliminated.*
*The Allied team has won the game!*

Stalin is frustrated with the outcome:

Stalin: i hate u all fags
*Stalin has left the game.*

Ran into this over at Cold Fury, originally from your source for military humor, the Strategy Page

Brew #4

Very Special Bitter

6.6 lbs (2 cans) John Bull light liquid malt extract
1/2 lb crystal malt 60L
1/2 lb caramunich malt (~40L)
1 pkg water crystals
1.25 oz Northern Brewer hops (pellet)- bittering
1 oz East Kent Goldings hops (whole)- aroma
1 oz East Kent Goldings hops (whole)- dry hopping
1 pkg dry Windsor yeast

Steeped specialty grains for 45 minutes in muslin bag at 165 +/-5 degrees in 1 gallon filtered tap water, and squoze bag out real good upon removal. Brought 2.2 gallons filtered tap water to boil and added steeping water to make 3.2 gallons of wort, more or less. Added malt extract and water crystals and returned to boil. Added Northern Brewer and started the 60-minute timer. At 48 min added the EKG in a muslin bag and boiled 12 minutes. Removed from heat, removed hop bag and squoze out real good.

Transferred to bathtub with 24 lbs ice plus cold water. Got the wort down to 113 degrees in less than half an hour.

To fermenting bucket added 2 gallons refrigerated distilled water at about 40 degrees. Added wort, filtered out break material and hop sludge, and poured back and forth to aerate. Final temperature was about 78 degrees. A little warmer than I'd like, but I was pinched for time.

Rehydrated yeast in 8 oz water at 90 degrees. Let stand 20 min, and pitched at about 85 degrees. I was worried about the temperature difference beween the yeast slurry and the temperature of the wort, but again... pinched for time. After 24 hours the yeast was working fine, so I know it's not dead. As to whether the high start temperature will affect the final flavor through production of
undesirable byproducts, I won't know until I taste it. I think I should be fine. Ish. Fermentation temperature is between 70 and 72 degrees, again a smidge higher than Windsor reputedly likes, so I might end up with some funny flavors like diacetyl butteriness.

Presuming the fermentation is pretty much wrapped up by Thursday, on Friday I will dry hop the primary with the second ounce of EKG and leave for 15 more days. That will hopefully be enough time for the hop flavor to reasonably fully extract. I paid enough for them, so I want my dang old money's worth.

Original Gravity: unknown. I managed to melt my plastic hygrometer flask trying to take boiling gravity reading. Meh. I'm gonna call it 1.045 for the hell of it. Who cares, anyway, as long as the beer turns out tasty?

With this one I am after something not entirely unlike Fuller's Extra Special Bitter. Even though ESBs can't really be done in bottles, the Windsor yeast and full pound of specialty grains (as well as the John Bull extract, which I'm told tends to be high in unfermentable sugars) ought to result in a nicely malty, very fragrant and estery beer with a balance bitterness. I love the aroma of East Kent Goldings, and my first tasting suggests they play very very well with the Northern Brewers. The only slightly sad part at this point is that the gas coming out of the airlock smells decidedly of EKG, which means that there's not a lot of aroma necessarily staying in the beer. Oh well... that's what the dry-hopping is for. I only hope it doesn't come out too bitter with the curranty bite I dislike in the local microbrew's ESB, which sometimes verges on the undrinkably awful. We shall see.

Other notes: used B-Brite as sanitizer. It's a percarbonate, not a peroxide, which some people argue makes it less effective as a sanitizer (and indeed it's marketed as a heavy-duty cleanser), but I
think it'll be okay. I bottled my brown ale using B-Brite as the sanitizer, and it is turning out fine. Nevertheless, I'll be ordering some One-Step right soon now. With One-Step there is no need to rinse as the hydrogen peroxide residue actually ends up contributing a tiny amount of oxygen to the brew, which might even help the fermentation but isn't enough to risk oxygenating the beer when it's bottled. As if a batch would stick around long enough to go stale. Please.

[wik] Upon bottling, the beer is delicious! Malty and sweet with a nice caramel bite and estery softness from the yeast, balanced with a proportional bitterness and that lovely, lovely EKG flavor. I think if I dry-hopped in secondary fermentation instead, the hop aroma would be even more pronounced. I expect that the hoppiness will fade a little over time as the free oxygen in the bottle (in headroom and the minute amount from the no-rinse One-Step) reacts with the hop oils. That's cool. I will drink it all before that becomes much of a problem. This is one I expect I'll be making again. Oh.... right. Used 4.3 oz corn suger to prime before bottling.

[alsø wik]Finished four of the last five bottles over the weekend of March 10, and this beer is better than ever. In fact, it seems to be coming into its own. I do think that the high fermentation temperature contributed an untoward amount of fruitiness to the flavor, but the basic idea behind the beer is very sound. Next time, it would be interesting to throw even more caramel malt into the mix, maybe 2 oz of 40L and 4 oz of 80 or 90L crystal, and dry hop in secondary for three weeks with 1-2 oz of Kent Goldings. Maybe also up the alcohol by adding a pound of dry malt extract, make this into a Big American Beer... With Tailfins! Also, 4.3 oz of corn sugar was too much. Next time cut it back to 3.5, more in line with how an English Ale should be. Also, next time I will break up the flavoring hops a bit. Instead of 1 ounce of EKG for 12 minutes, I should go with 1/2 oz for 20 minutes and 1/2 oz for 5. I want to get a little more grapefruity flavor out of the hops, and also a little more nose. Basically, I'm just surprised that this beer lasted since Thanksgiving!