ChrisTalbot.com

It’s amazing what people will watch on YouTube.

People who know me are aware that I have had long hair (usually tied back in a ponytail) for a very long time. I had long hair in high school from ages sixteen to eighteen, and then again from age twenty onwards. Last week, I decided to make an extreme change, and helped by my friend Rawl and brother Sean, we turned the big haircut into a video to show friends and family that I had indeed changed my hair.

Apparently haircut videos are popular on YouTube, because as of today, the video has attracted more than 1100 viewers.

As the days and nights (especially the nights) start to cool down a bit, I’m starting to look ahead to more indoor activities and fewer outdoor activities. Although I do have one more camping trip planned for the summer (in September), I’m not really outfitted for four-season camping, so I stay closer to home and occupy my mind with sedentary pursuits. One of those pursuits is tabletop gaming of various types.

Much as I love video games, my real gaming love is tabletop gaming — board games, hex-and-counter war games, card games and (yes, I’m a geek) roleplaying games. After a visit to a couple of gaming stores on the weekend, I’ve been thinking more and more about tabletop gaming, especially RPGs. In fact, I’ll be running a Delta Green game tonight for a couple of friends to introduce them to the setting. Regular RPGing will resume a couple of weeks after Labour Day.

Typically what happens is I spend the fall, winter and early spring playing games on a fairly regular basis, and then I go into a summer hiatus, focusing more on my outdoor hobbies and pastimes. It’s been happening that way for the better part of my adult life, and I don’t see the cycle changing any time soon.

So bring on gaming season! The summer is near its end.

There are some great beer review video series on YouTube, but most of them focus on U.S. or international beers. My guest host and I offer a freshly Canadian perspective on beer reviews, but we also talk about beer in general, brewing, types of malts and some of the aspects of beer styles (in this case, pale ales).

Prior to this past weekend’s Algonquin camping trip, I prepared an easily made mango curry recipe. It’s a variation on a Backpacker Magazine recipe. The verdict? Tasty, but it makes so many servings that it might be worth cutting the recipe in half if you’re going out on a trip by yourself. Or, if you’re a big eater, go for the whole thing. It is a lot of food, though.

I really only shot this boring project for something to do. It’s also proven to me that people on YouTube will watch just about anything, as it already has about a dozen views.

It’s a good sign when you set off on a trip and the radio is blasting music everyone knows and can sing along to. It was Boom 93.7 FM’s “all Eighties” weekend that kept the four of us rockin’ out as we headed through Toronto and up the 400 on our way to Parry Sound for a two-night stay on crown land.

By the time we arrived at our launch point and put the canoe in the water, we had made a couple of short detours, shared some laughs and were still hearing the echoes of various retro classics in our heads. It was a calm night on the water as we paddled out to the site (which was particularly important, as we were over-loaded and a little top-heavy). Setting up camp in the dark is something I hadn’t done in recent memory, and with flashlights and headlamps illuminating our work, we managed to get ourselves dug in for a weekend of hiking, fishing and chilling out.

The trip also marked the first time I camped underneath a tarp with no tent enclosing me. Pitching the Integral Designs siltarp was quick and easy, and it certainly was faster than setting up a tent. Sleeping more or less in the outdoors with only a tarp overhead for protection from the elements was a fantastic experience — and one I hope to very soon duplicate. Pitching and tearing down tents are the two things that bug me about camping, and I believe I have found (with a future bivy acquisition) a far better option for myself.

Here’s what the siltarp looks like from a distance (click for a larger image):

And a closer look so you can get an idea of what it’s like inside (click for a larger image):

One of the key activities for the weekend was hiking out of the site to figure out how to get in and out without watercraft. The hike was a success from that regard, and we also found several signs of the various types of animals in the area (wolves, moose, etc.).

There were enough camp chores to go around, and when we weren’t busy at camp or on the hike, we were fishing or hanging around the campfire swapping stories and having a few drinks.

It’s unfortunate I don’t get up to the Parry Sound area to camp more often, but I do hope to find time for another trip before the temperatures drop too low.

Last night was another beer bottling event at my new brewing buddy’s place, and he has gone out of his way to get swing-top Grolsch bottles from one of his favourite pubs. Using swing-tops makes bottling nights much easier on homebrewers than bottles that need to be fitted with pry-caps. In fact, using swing-top bottles (whether they’re Grolsch bottles or from another brewery) can speed up the bottling process because an entire step (capping) is removed entirely.

As I’m looking ahead to an evening of bottling my T&E India Pale Ale, I’m wishing I had more swing-top bottles ready for to go downstairs. Instead, I expect to be making use of a fair number of caps.

One of these days, I’m going to remove the entire bottling process from my homebrewing experiments and move everything to kegging.

A meeting with the CABA president Sunday night reminded me once again how many different unique styles of beer there are on the market. Although the most interesting beers are not the easiest ones to find, occasionally there are opportunities to try something truly unique.

Sunday night’s big treat was the Southern Tier Creme Brulee Stout, which truly lived up to its name by providing a sweet, toffee-tasting beer that would work well as a dessert beer. It’s not something I’d like to drink all the time (especially at 9% ABV), but it’s one of those beers I’m very happy to have been introduced to. If given the chance, I’d like to stock a few bottles in my beer fridge for future consumption.

If you like beer and enjoy unique flavours, it’s highly recommended that you keep an eye on new releases and, where possible, pick up beers that may fit your tastes.

The tricky part of keeping your company’s blog a source of interest, education and even marketing for customers is in keeping it up to date. We’re living in a cyber-world where the attention span sometimes seems to be incredibly short, and if you’re not constantly communicating (or even entertaining) your customers and potential customers, you have competitors that will.

One of the things I’ve been told on many occasions and have come to believe is that a blog should be updated regularly (preferably at least three times per week, if not every day). (As you’ll see, I tend to stumble when it comes to updating regularly — something I am always trying to fix.) Updating for the sake of updating, though, is not a good way to attract or keep the average Internet user’s attention.

People want to read and see (don’t forget pictures and video are major traffic points) interesting, informative and — most importantly — useful content. The stereotypical personal journal type of blog will attract Mom, Dad and a few close friends and family members, but in the world of business blogging, good content (not opinions) is what drives traffic.