The Brown Knowser

I closed my account, without a word, just minutes before midnight, on Saturday. Without a goodbye. Like a stranger in the night, I slipped silently away. I left Twitter. I've done this once before but for a different reason. I left Twitter in July, 2016, sort of as a reaction to information overload. That time, I did say 'goodbye' before I deactivated my account. My departure wasn't long-lived, as less than a week later, I was back . I've been on vacations that have kept me away from the social-media site for longer than that. Ultimately, it was FOMO and missing friends that made me resume my account. But that was in 2016 and a lot has changed since then. There was information being shared in my feed that would make me angry. I would see posts that would promote hate and other posts that delivered misinformation, and even though I would try to block and mute people who shared these tweets, it was impossible to avoid. And that was before Elon Musk took the platform ...

The following passage is a rough-draft excerpt from my upcoming novel, Gyeosunim , the sequel to Songsaengnim: A Korea Diary . Be warned that there are spoilers and you may be missing some context. Passages are in no particular order and are subject to change. Thursday, May 16, 2019 “You are fat, Lolan-duh.” “And you are even more beautiful than I remember, Su-ah shi .” I added the familial shi to the end of her given name. It was how I had addressed her, all those years ago, as my Korean improved and I went from addressing her by Miss Kang to using her first name, as I used to hear Kwon call to her from his office. Only, he was addressing her as his inferior: I, on the other hand, was addressing her as a friend. Indeed, Su-ah was beautiful, ageless. Now in her early forties, she did not develop into the stereotypical ajuma , or aunt , that we had seen in so many middle-aged women in the late 1990s. Her hair was long and straight, tied into a ponytail. The last time I had seen her...

It's true that these hazy, tropical-fruit-flavoured ales are a mutation of a classic IPA. They are hop-forward ales but they have taken on characteristics that can no longer be recognized as an India Pale Ale. India has nothing to do with these brews. Don't get me wrong: I love this style of pale-coloured ale. I love the hazy glow. I love the notes of pineapple, mango, and tangerine. They have become one of my favourite styles of beer. I could drink them all day. But in no way do they make me think of an IPA. I know that I've said this before and I know that the ship has sailed for giving this style of ale a name all its own. I guess it's too late to call them a New England/Northeast Pale Ale (NEPA) or a West Coast Pale Ale. India is a wonderful country but we should leave it be when it comes to naming a beer that doesn't come from that distant land nor is intended for export to that destination. We should just accept that hazy, juicy ales are a mutant IPA. Which br...

I recently saw a National Archive photo of the Aberdeen Pavilion, at Lansdowne Park, from 1903, when the building was only five years old, and I thought that I would share it with you. Library and Archives Canada It hasn't changed much. I've wondered: has it always been painted yellow? For as long as I can remember, the Cattle Castle, as it's nicknamed, has been some light shade of yellow. Now, nearly 125 years old, I can't imagine Ottawa without this heritage landmark. Can you? Happy Tuesday!

Three weeks in and I'm still learning new stuff on Mastodon. There are things that I miss about Twitter—besides, obvs, the friends I made over the last dozen years. I miss the direct messages (DMs) that seem to be missing: at least, on the instance to which I subscribe. I miss being able to schedule messages: I mainly used Hootsuite, which doesn't seem to be compatible, at the moment, with Mastodon, but I also used to write tweets that I'd schedule to post at a later time. It doesn't seem to be the case with Mastodon, which is a drag for when I want to schedule announcements of new blog posts. I have to manually publish them to my instance. But I don't miss the ads and other promoted tweets. I'd end up either muting or blocking the person or company that would post these messages, which would repeat themselves over and over in my feed. And when I blocked one, another would take its place. It was like playing Whack-a-Mole. I thought I'd feel overwhelmed...

It is quite the sight to see a large flock of Canada geese come in for a landing in a small body of water--one that is already filled with their fellow birds. But when DW, some friends, and I hiked through Morris Island Conservation Area , last weekend, that's exactly what we saw. And it appeared to be a highly organized action. Several squadrons of the birds flew over the inner bay, an offshoot of the Ottawa River, the flock forming patterns and taking various courses to avoid flying into one another. Then, as a signal to one another, each group would take turns going in for a landing. It wasn't just a feat of aerial maneuverability high above but also skill in landing in the water without striking another goose. We watched several flocks perform these landing moves, as though they had one or more air traffic controllers signalling them when it was their turn. There were even some go-arounds as the flock decided to abort their landing and try again. All the landings were succe...

I should have never opened my first can when my kid was in the kitchen, making chocolate pudding. I should have known that the intoxicating aromas of sweet chocolate would interfere with my senses as I tried to discern the bouquet of my glass of stout that was infused with roasted cocoa nibs. But man, did those two aromas ever mix well. As the winter months draw near, I tend to move from lighter, fruitier beer to those with more body and depth—not that an IPA can't have that and still quench my thirst on a hot summer's day. But I tend to go with darker, malty brews in colder weather. This week, with Ottawa's first snowfall of the season (yes, it's still autumn), was the perfect time to dig into a new stout. And while I had my first can of this stout when Kid 1 was making that rich chocolate pudding, before the snow, I had my second sampling of it yesterday, with no other aromas to interfere. Some of my initial observations, regardless of the pudding's interferen...

For most of the year, I take my pleasure in drinking beer or wine. They are my 'grown-up' drinks that I've been consuming since before I was a grown up and I love pairing them with a meal—a solid IPA with a curried chicken or a Chianti and a barbecue-grilled steak—or slowly sipping while enjoying a good flick on the TV. I'll occasionally enjoy a good malt whisky but only do so if I have company, usually my father, who shares my appreciation of a smoky, peaty Islay malt. And I enjoy tropical cocktails on a really hot day, such as when I'm lounging on a beach. A margarita is usually my drink of choice, though I'll indulge on a cola with dark rum from time to time. But I don't often go for other alcoholic beverages during the year, except during the Christmas holidays. And I don't usually get into these drinks until December or, as I like to refer to it, the egg-nog season. At this time of year, I'll slip an ounce of Irish cream into my coffee or top...

Okay, it's only been a week. I feel as though I'm a teenager again (sort of) and have moved to a new high school. Some of my friends have also been transferred to this new school but most of the kids are new to me and none of the teachers are familiar. It's exciting, in some ways; in other ways, it's terrifying. I've made the decision to leave Twitter. Last week, I mentioned how I was planning to make the switch from this popular social media platform, with which I've been a member for more than 12 years, to another platform—either Counter Social or Mastodon. I had created accounts for both but knew that eventually, I'd choose one over the other. On Friday, I made my choice: I'm moving to Mastodon. I can be found at @BrownKnowser@mstdn.ca . On Saturday, I let the folks who followed me on Counter Social know that I was moving and encouraged them to make the move to Mastodon as well. It's worth a shot. Actually, some of my Twitter friends followed me ...

I take a lot of snapshots of our cats. I mean, who doesn't like to capture memories of their household pets? But this is one of my favourite recent shots of our little princess, Cece. As Kid 1 describes it, this shot is of our cat posing like a sphinx. I can't argue. With her body stretched out on the kitchen floor, her forepaws supporting her upper half, and her head held up, she does strike a distinct pose. I captured this image with my smartphone, held upside down so that the lens was as low to the floor as I could make it—the top of the phone is actually resting on the ground. I used the wide-angle lens (my smartphone has three lenses) and angled it upward, slightly. The trick was to keep Cece still and to hold her pose long enough that I could get the shot. I said nothing to her and moved so casually so that she wouldn't move away. Within seconds of snapping this photo, she was up and on the move again. It's so much easier to capture her when she's asleep....

There are lots of single-hopped ales out there, and that's a good thing. By focusing on one hop, you can learn the subtleties of that variety and be able to detect it in future brews. If a label doesn't list the hops that are used in making the beer that you're drinking, you can at least pick out that hop by the flavour profile. And so, today's review is going to focus on a single-hop pale ale by a brewery that I had never heard of before I happened upon one of their pale ales in my local grocery store. And while I wasn't fussy about that brew , I quite like this creation. Mosaic Single Hop Pale Ale (5.2% ABV) Furnace Room Brewery Georgetown ON Appearance: a glowing, hazy apricot-orange with a foamy white head that pours thick and then settles to a thin cap. Nose: limes, pineapple. Palate: flavours of pine and grass make up the bulk of what you feel in the mouth, and it comes to a short, clean finish.  Overall impression: this is a thirst-quenching, easy-drinki...

This is why I'm still a rank amateur. I take my equipment for granted far too often. I assume that I can just pull a camera out of its case and start using it without doing simple checks. Like, whether I have a data card in it or whether that card has enough storage space. I've gone out to do an entire photo shoot, only to discover, when I returned home, that the SD card wasn't in the camera. I've also had to cull photos that were already on the card so that I had room to shoot the photos that I had set out to take. I've left the house with a camera that had a dead battery. The camera was essentially a paper weight. Fortunately, I haven't done that for any organized shoot with my photo club and I've had my smartphone as a backup. But still... And recently, I set out on a kayaking adventure with my 360-degree camera without doing a final lens cleaning before rolling. This blunder happened a couple of weeks ago, when DW and I had a friend join us on a bea...

In April, when Elon Musk was threatening to buy Twitter, I wondered where I would go if and when the sale had been completed. On Friday, October 28, the deal was done and I held my breath to see what my next steps were. I had already created an account on Counter Social ( @brownknowser ), an alternative social-media site. There was a bit of a learning curve but the toughest challenge was to connect with any of my Twitter peeps who had also joined this platform. Within a week, I had sort of forgotten Counter Social and stuck with Twitter, for the time being. One week ago, after Musk cut all the executives (or they had jumped ship), I knew that my time on Twitter was even more limited. I could see an end in sight. But many of my peeps had cast a rope to another social-media site, Mastodon, so I had a look, myself, and created an account there ( @BrownKnowser@mstdn.ca ). It's a bit more complicated, in that you must choose a server upon which to attach your profile, and you must know...