Mycroft Update

Well gang, I guess it's time to update his bad boy before I work this weekend, (which has a high potential to suck a whole lot), so here's what's been going on with me lately.

1.) A ridiculous amount of Diablo III. I played the hell out of the first 2 in the early 2000's and good god the new one is so much more streamlined and effective at making me never want to leave my computer. I've logged in... a lot of time with that game and I'm only just now able to play through part of the first act on the hardest difficulty. So yeah, I finally understand why Ahmed loves to gamble so much because every time I'm killing a monster I'm just waiting to hear the sound of loot drop and looking frantically around hoping that it's yellow (rare) or orange (legendary) so I can either; a) use it because it has better stats than the gear I'm currently using, or b) sell it on the auction house for more gold. It's so damn fun.

2.) Listening to the new album from The Tallest Man on Earth, There's No Leaving Now. There is currently a stream up on NPR.org, (which I expect will be down Tuesday when the album comes out), and it is so damn good. This is still the same Swede that we've all come to know and love and he's still (for the most part) just jamming out on his acoustic guitar. I've only listened to it 3 or 4 times so far, but it somehow pulled off the impossible of retaining a core sound while still finding ways to accent and further explore that sound in ways that I wouldn't have thought he could pull off in the past.

My mindset now that I'm somewhat older and god forbid, wiser, is that a musician needs to always progress and can't make the same album again and again. That sucks sometimes when a fan really likes a particular sound and feels almost abandoned when their favorite musician seems to distance themselves from the music that earned that fan. But that musician can't make the same album over and over because people change, so their music must change as well. Anyways... this new album by The Tallest Man on Earth manages to straddle that problem and moves forward, (just a bit), while still making the most beautiful music in the world. Boom. I'm giving it the Stiche letter of recommendation.

3.) Tea. I've been drinking a shit load of the stuff lately. I thought to myself a few months ago, "Hey, Stiche, how can I become a bit more pretentious other than start listening to exclusively Black Metal bands that are from only Norway and who's albums sell fewer than 500 albums?" And instead of going the underground Black Metal route, I decided to get into loose leaf tea. Surprisingly, (or not...), nowhere in the F-M area are there legit loose leaf tea dealers so I went onto the interweb and found what looked like a legit seller, Adagio Teas, and made my first purchase. I got a green tea sampler, which was very good, but I fell in love with black teas probably because there was more caffeine and I tend to stay up all night. Also, now that I think about it, I've always been drawn to stronger tastes with coffee... my favorite drinks have been depth charges/red eyes and Americanos so I guess that makes a bit more sense now that I think about it. Anyways, I started out with some of the old flavors I loved from my tea bag days like Earl Gray, Irish Breakfast, and Darjeeling and they were all fantastic. Well that was early April and I noticed that my tea stores were running low so I made another buying spree at Adagio and this time I went with blends and being the complete fucking nerd that I am, all the blends I chose had names that were either related to Sherlock, (the newish BBC series, not the movies with RDJ), and Dr. Who. So I'm now the proud new owner of 3 oz. each of the Tardis blend, Amy Pond blend, Watson blend, and the Mycroft blend. Some of them are more savory like the Watson blend that mixes Irish Breakfast with Earl Gray Green with cinnamon, (which I'm drinking right now and is fantastic), ad some are just tasty like the Mycroft which is pretty much chocolate with cream and vanilla.

Anyways, I'm feeling a bit more healthy drinking a bunch of tea instead of a bunch of coffee, but I still drink a bunch of coffee anyways... It's good stuff and would recommend for everyone to just buy a few boxes of tea bags and try those out. If you like them, awesome, finish the box and venture onto loose leaf tea. First off, you'll be able to scoff at all the peons who drink tea bags *scoff scoff*, and there is just so much more variety at the loose leaf level even for someone like me who has no access to great tea shops or co-ops where one can buy fresh. I'm not even saying Adagio Tea is the best tea, but it's treated me pretty well so far. And the taste of loose leaf tea is just on a whole other level. So good.