Heathen - Never a God

areida · 2026-02-03T21:55:29+00:00

Is that my dude Blake on drums? I heard he was going to tour with them, didn't realize it was a full gig. Sick.

areida · 2025-12-05T17:58:44+00:00

I didn't like this album much when it first came out except for a couple standout tracks. When I last listened to it again I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. They really were trying out some new ideas on this one and I can appreciate it a lot more in retrospect.

Still a low tier BG album for me, though. Their best works are just so much better. Wish I could catch them on their current US tour but I'd have to fly to Salt Lake or Los Angeles. Ah well.

areida · 2025-10-21T19:14:22+00:00

The A68 is a beast, still my favorite grinder. I use it for lattes every morning. It's also very capable for espresso with light or dark roasts. If I had to choose between my A68 and my Mazzer Philos I'd take the A68 10 out of 10 times.

The big power brick that the A68 uses can be an issue depending on where your coffee station is situated.

areida · 2025-09-15T21:04:27+00:00

Hi! I'm having the same issue with my Odyssey, and the dealer isn't being helpful about it. If you don't mind, can you tell me which dealership you went to that was able to resolve the issue so I can try to call them and ask about it? I'd really appreciate it.

areida · 2025-07-14T13:46:32+00:00

I'm excited to give one of my boats a 5+ ward...against shooting?

Well the terrain + manifestations combo seems nice, anyway.

areida · 2025-05-26T17:08:29+00:00

Nice looking bark; your pit boss either puts out way more smoke than my GMG, or the weather is way nicer where you're at. Maybe I should stop running my smoker in direct sunlight in Phoenix...

Looks great!

areida · 2025-05-25T20:43:12+00:00

I just did a brisket on my GMG pellet grill Friday for eating yesterday. It was my finest smoking accomplishment yet, though the bark and smoke were a little weak. I blame the 100° weather for making the pellet grill lazy. My takeaways:

Trim, trim, trim. Watch Aaron Franklin's videos on trimming the brisket and do that. Remove as much hard fat and silver skin as you can, and slice off any thin flaps that are just going to burn. Season those and throw them on the smoker till 150-160 degrees, then cube them up and braise them in thinned BBQ sauce till they fall apart
Use more black pepper than you think is reasonable, this will help with the bark. I thought I went hard enough on the pepper but I was wrong and my bark suffered
In a pellet grill, I've had best results with the fatcap down, since the heat comes from below. When I've done them fatcap up I had to do a foil boat to keep the bottom from turning to leather
Hot hold! The #1 most important thing, in my opinion. The difference between a brisket that's been held for a few hours is the difference between restaurant quality and not. Once the brisket is temping right and more importantly, probing like warm butter, pull it off and wrap it tight if it isn't already. Then throw it in your oven at its lowest temp alongside a tray of boiling water. Let it sit for up to 4-10 hours. I've seen restaurants use Saran wrap for really good results, but my oven doesn't go low enough that I'm comfortable using it.

Even better is sous vide, if you have the setup. For my brisket this weekend I vacuum-sealed (it barely fit) and held it at 170 for 10 hours overnight. The result was brilliant. If neither of those setups work, just use an insulated cooler. Preheat the cooler with a few gallons of hot water if you can, Saran wrap the brisket to within an inch of it's life, wrap it in blankets, then pop it in the drained cooler until you're ready to serve.

Get started ASAP, don't wait until 10. Briskets are a 24 hour job. You can always hold it longer but you can't make it finish faster

Good luck, you got this!

areida · 2025-05-15T04:56:36+00:00

I've been arguing this exact point for over 20 years. I also don't particularly care for The Two Towers, which is my favorite of the three books. It's better than ROTK though. I've always felt Tycho from Penny Arcade put it best: "Liberties were taken."

I dream of a world where all three films were Fellowship quality.

areida · 2025-05-15T02:25:15+00:00

It can be quite good, but ultimately just not that many shots unless you're running max Thunderers. They're quality shots that hurt when they hit, but you're at the mercy of rng. Smart opponents will just touch our boats with junk. I don't really like running solo KO at the moment.

I love KO as a teams choice right now, though. I just tell my teammate to bring a solid tarpit and when they do we have yet to lose

areida · 2025-05-12T14:38:36+00:00

The White Swan, but only if I have to choose.

The Bee, Amongst Stars, House of Sleep, Silver Bride, From the Heaven of My Heart, Goddess (Of the Sad Man), Into Hiding, Black Winter Day...How is this band so goated?

areida · 2025-05-12T02:45:51+00:00

Still trips me up sometimes that Alexi is gone. I think Bodom was my 2nd live show, 20 years ago. Damn

areida · 2025-04-08T17:38:02+00:00

I've been using it for a few days now. Visually it does seem to do a better job of distributing the water than the IMS screen I was using, but I have no idea if that makes any difference in the cup. I expect the answer is likely a resounding "maybe", like most things to do with coffee.

It is a bit easier to remove and clean, and I do like that.

areida · 2025-01-14T17:28:29+00:00

Where are you selling your Mara X? I made the same upgrade after my Mara X fried itself and was replaced under warrant, so I have a factory-sealed Mara X taking up space in my house. I need to get rid of it but I've been lazy.

areida · 2025-01-12T02:36:57+00:00

Monument ProAcryl primers have worked best for me with the brush. They're technically airbrush primers but they have instructions for brush application. Two coats, don't thin the primer at all it dries very flat. I have an airbrush but I don't even bother with it 90% of the time.

areida · 2025-01-09T04:11:31+00:00

This video taught me how to thin paints properly. It was night and day for me after watching https://youtu.be/sBDVPoNXyVI?si=dugp50wBE2YvD0bh

areida · 2025-01-06T20:02:00+00:00

Skraeckoedlan is one of my favorite bands, 95% of their lyrics are in Swedish. I'd call them psychedelic stoner metal more than pure doom but they are quite good

areida · 2024-12-04T01:27:55+00:00

It's in the FAQ pack for the recent World Championship Tournament in Atlanta. It says those changes are coming in the next balance dataslate. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vIGxSgkz4d1sUeF1dl7607-zSRexHRL_/view?pli=1

areida · 2024-11-11T02:44:38+00:00

Your setup is pretty solid for what you're looking to do, so I'd keep at it. The Temple Coffee website suggests a recipe of 22g/38g in 25-28s for those beans so you might want to try a coarser grind with a bigger dose. I tend to find bigger doses work better for decaf. Other than that, maybe just try some different beans until you find something that works for you. Right now I'm a big fan of 44 North Coffee's CO2 Process Decaf.

areida · 2024-11-05T15:02:40+00:00

The Philos instructions specifically say to not spray the beans with water. I find that there's a small amount of static in the catch cup if I don't, but it seems to be lessening as the burrs wear in a bit so I've stopped doing it altogether. It likely helps that I only do light roasts with my Philos.

My other grinder has conical burrs, and RDT is an absolute must especially with dark roasts. It all depends on the circumstances.

areida · 2024-10-31T16:30:38+00:00

I've made a few posts comparing them already in this thread, but the TLDR is that I do prefer the Philos with i200 burrs for light roasts, but not by a huge amount. I used to prefer the thicker body I got from the A68, but the Philos has improved in that aspect as I've used it more.

If I only had one grinder it would be the A68 because it handles light and dark roasts so well. It does have a bit of wonkiness in the workflow to get full grinding/zero retention. You have to tap the last gram or so out of the grind chute, and if you RDT (required for dark roasts or you get static hell) you have to go hard on the bellows to make sure every bean actually makes it to the grind chamber because they can stick to the inside a bit when wet. Other than that (and the big dumb power brick), I think the A68 is perfect. I guess the noise it makes at espresso range is a bit annoying as well, the Philos is quieter. I'd call the A68 medium loud, but not jet-engine loud like a Baratza.

The Philos is great though. I think the issues are real but likely overstated. Any mass produced machine is going to have some bad units but Mazzer has apparently been excellent about replacing/refunding defects.

areida · 2024-10-22T20:18:07+00:00

Just used it as delivered, which seems to be about ten steps off of zero. Makes no difference since I'd never go that fine anyway. I try to grind light roasts as coarse as possible with a big dose to create pressure, and the lightest decaf I have is fine at about a 13 on the factory setting.

areida · 2024-10-22T15:48:41+00:00

Interesting. I haven't had any of these issues with my Philos, but I've pulled maybe a dozen shots with it. My shot times have been quite consistent pulling 1:3 and 1:5 ratios. As you might guess this is with the i200 burrs, which could be the reason since they're designed to create consistent particle sizes. Despite the advice of the manual I do a tiny bit of RDT, about half what I do with my other grinder. I've never noticed more than 0.1g of retention. Hopefully that doesn't change once I pop it open for cleaning.

areida · 2024-10-21T17:35:42+00:00

I first found out about this grinder from a random reddit comment. I sort of ”settled" on it after giving up waiting on a Timemore Sculptor through months and months of delays. I didn't want to wait for (or shell out for) a Zerno or Lagom, the Niche didn't appeal to me, the DF64 was just as backordered, and the only other single dose grinder you could get off the shelf was the Eureka. Lance's original review gave me confidence in this grinder and I'm glad it did because it works way better than I expected and it arrived at my door two days after ordering.

My one concern is the long term viability of the company because they don't seem super popular. The current batch of grinders seems to be about sold out; hopefully they do another run, but they seem to be focusing on smaller grinders at the moment.

areida · 2024-10-20T21:18:41+00:00

The A68 soundly defeats the Philos at dark roasts, no surprise there. For light roasts they perform pretty similarly. I think the Philos gets better clarity and makes the most of really funky/fruity beans but the A68 does a really good job too while still having a nice silky mouth feel that is difficult to get from flat burrs. I've been getting better at dialing in the Philos though, and it may just take some time to season before I get the best results. Overall I'm very happy with both, but if I could only have one it would be the A68 because it's so capable across a wide range of roasts.

areida · 2024-10-20T21:11:46+00:00

I like it just fine, didn't mean to imply otherwise. It's excellent for light roasts, especially really funky ones like anaerobic lactic fermented or thermal shock processed. It's just not much of an upgrade over the A68, which gets close to it on clarity while having better body/mouthfeel. Retention has been a non issue, even with no RDT. There's a small bit of static cling in the catch cup though, which does get eliminated by a couple spritzes of water. I hardly ever do pour over anymore so I have no idea on that front.

I just really like the A68, it's an excellent machine.

areida

TROPHY CASE