
Sunrise: January 04, 2015 at 08:09AM
Sunset: January 04, 2015 at 05:21PM
Today’s High: 33F
Today’s Low: 9F
The snow has started here again in Kalamazoo, and it looks like there could actually be some accumulation. I can feel the cabin fever beginning to set in already.
For now, I’m hunkered down in the basement watching Arsenal play in the third round of the FA Cup. Mertesacker has put in a header to put us ahead, but I would be less anxious with another one.
Author: gee
New Today On Blinkingline Journal
Anti-social Media
One of the things that I was hoping to accomplish with the new blog seems somewhat counter intuitive: I want to use it to disengage a little from social media. It’s probably messed up logic, but in looking at setting this all up and trying to figure out where I want to post and interact, I realized that probably 90% of the content I see on facebook is shit that I have zero interest in. Sure, a lot of the links that show up in my feed are entertaining, but there’s a difference between being entertained and being engaged.
So I tweaked out my facebook settings a bit so that when someone wants to interact with me I get a notification, otherwise, I pretty much have no reason to log in to them at all.
ROBERT MOSES: THE MASTER BUILDER OF NEW YORK CITY by Pierre Christin and Olivier Balez

This biography chronicles the rise of Robert Moses, the urban planner who shaped New York City in the middle of the 20th century.
#7 on the NYT Best Sellers List for Hardcover Graphic Books
THE GIGANTIC BEARD THAT WAS EVIL by Stephen Collins

On the magical island of Here, a powerful and unruly beard disrupts the previously tidy and hairless existence of Dave, the island’s most fastidious resident.
#5 on the NYT Best Sellers List for Hardcover Graphic Books
Founder's Big Lushious
New Year's Resolutions
So many times, a list of New Year’s resolutions go through things that people want to do to make themselves better. I’ve done that in the past, but this year, I’m going to try to set legitimate tangible goals and see what happens:
1) Read a book a week.
2) Go to at least one moped rally.
3) Post to the blog three times a week.
4) Find (or create) a boardgame group and play a game a week.
5) Explore more of Kalamazoo, trying a new restaurant or bar every two weeks.
Blend Evolution

Blend recipe for Forty-Six (roasted 12/18)
Coffees, much like any other consumed agricultural crop, will change over time. As these coffees change, coffee roasters have to tweak out their blends in an effort to maintain a consistent blend profile. For example, the photo at the left is the current blend recipe for Counter Culture Coffee’s “Forty-Six”.
What’s interesting is that the original blend of Forty-Six (or MAG1 as it was originally listed in the Counter Culture recipe sheet) was 33.3% French Roast (which would vary, but was typically something Central or South American like Nicaragua or Peru), 33.3% Guatemala (almost always Antigua, and from the same estate, though the name has long since left my head) and 33.3% Sumatra (from various estates, but the green buyer at the time focused on “clean”-er Sumatras rather than the crazy funkballs that you often see).
The most fascinating part of this to me is the fact that this coffee is now half African, utilizing the big berry and fruit notes from the Ethiopians to make up the flavor profile of the replaced Indonesian. I suspect that by upping the dark roast component, they can use the lighter roasted Africans to round it out.
New Today On Blinkingline Journal

My Top 10 for 2014
According to my stats, these are the artists who I listened to the most in 2014:
| Iron & Wine | 269 |
|---|---|
| Cat Power | 257 |
| Bon Iver | 243 |
| Fleet Foxes | 205 |
| Feist | 169 |
| The National | 165 |
| Great Lake Swimmers | 161 |
| Grizzly Bear | 159 |
| The Shins | 149 |
| Arctic Monkeys | 149 |
| Pixies | 147 |
| The Walkmen | 145 |
