I value my time, and if there's a way I can shave off even a few minutes of doing some mundane task, I'll do it. Yes sir, real mind-bending and asinine things I speak here, huh?

This morning I was at the local supermercado to fill the void that is my gaping caffeine addiction and to pick up another 2 gallon pump-jug of soy sauce-- if there's two things I can never get enough of is a slight buzz and an elevated and irregular heart rate.

It only took a few minutes to grab my items and head towards the checkout lane, when I was stopped short of throwing shit at the head of a four person queue--each person with ten items--in the only goddamn open lane. I closed my eyes and pictured each of the four trying to buy Similac with expired food stamps, too, but I'm demented most of the time.

But, when I scanned one lane to the right and noticed that all four self-checkout lanes were open, and totally empty. Praise Jesus. I sauntered, or swaggered, depending on how you'd like to picture my ass in your imagination, up to the first open kiosk and deftly motored my way the process, and out the door in less than three minutes.

I gave everyone in line my patented "walking away, middle finger over the shoulder salute", hopped in my BMW 13 series and tried to run over 3 hobos and 2 prostitutes and 17 transvestites on my drive to work. I didn't succeed in any of those, but I so totally proved myself worthy of life by saving 1 minute and 45 seconds by trusting a computer.

I. AM. AWESOME.

Really, though, would you wait in that long of a line when you could use an empty self-checkout lane, and also not have to talk to a supermarket employee that hates living life? Granted, I understand that using technology is hard, almost sometimes as hard as addition and subtraction, or even radical ideas like chewing and breathing, but it's not that difficult once you realize that the whole secret is that the damn self check-out kiosk is a scale located underneath where you supposed to put your scanned items, you know, so the store knows you're not a thieving asshole, you hoodlum, you.

I'm looking right at you, Guy That I'm Usually Stuck Behind.

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My job consists of a large amount of downtime, downtime that's normally filled by the internet. In order to become a better employee and curtail bad habits should I ever escape this cubicle gulag, for the past few months I've been trying to cut out my internet usage, or at the very least keep away from sites with the words "tight" and "teens" in the url. It's harder than you might think, no pun intended.

My most recent great idea--one on the same level as the Segway or taking a vow of celibacy--was to install a time tracker on Firefox.

It was working up until about a week ago, when I looked at the time and it said I'd spent 9 hours and 3 minutes on the internet. In and 8 hour workday. Now I just feel depressed.

I look back at all the things I've purchased for homebrewing since I started in September(less than 7 months ago--really?), and all the time I've spent on forums or random blogs, reading and absorbing beer knowledge, and I realize that isn't that far removed from how I took to poker in 2003. That my almost retired poker blog is going to be 4 years old is odd to me.

Anyhow, when I started off brewing, I really didn't have a clue what I was doing, or why. Still don't for that matter. Same with poker. I do know that all this beer has started turning me into a tubby tub tub fatty fat, but I think that's a role I could really dig into, if given the chance. Many of you have done the same, I see. Also, Molly has said that she'll leave me if I ever put on a lot of weight, so hey--newer model girlfriend, here I come!(...slowly lumbering, out of breath, wheezing, in desperate need of a cheeseburger and some chili cheese fries).

But, much like poker, or any new hobby for that matter, it's tough for me to get past a certain point when none of my local friends enjoy the same thing. I don't have the daily face-to-face conversations about brewing or beer, or with someone that knows much more about beer than I do(not tough) to tell me if my beer sucks or not. My friends have liked certain styles so far, but I suspect that they would drink almost anything that's free and doesn't taste like swamp water.(No offense, Drizz!)

I started off gangbusters in September, brewing something like ten to fifteen 5 gallon batches of beer in just a few months, but I haven't brewed since the end of January for no other reason than being too awesome right out of the gate, which almost seems like cheating, or like I've done no real leg work in making what amounts to good beer, or what could be considered good beer by people who know the difference. That's boring. Ok, fine, perhaps I've grown a little too lazy as well.

What this amounts to is that I've got to get out of my comfort zone(hmmm, once again like poker)--that area where I just allow my friends drink my beer, because that's the safe thing to do-- and either enter competitions(not likely), or join a local club and get input from those much more experienced than am I. We shall see about that, though. That would mean I'd have to deal with real people again, and I hate real people. I might just have to start a beer blog...

So, yeah, I need to make more beer pronto. I'd post a picture of my empty kegerator, but I figure that it's Monday, and people are having a tough time dealing with the day as is--no need to make you sad about that, too.