philipcristiano's posterous

I've had some trouble remembering to scrobble at certain times, like when I reformat and think I've set up the daemon properly. Since Last.fm has an API I figured I could solve that problem!

I just put up a very beta-ish site for doing just that! You can check it out ScrobbleChecker. I warn you though that I'm still working on some basic things... like unsubscribing, and like any of my projects, I haven't done any design. 

There was a bug about sending emails too frequently, although that has been fixed. 

Given your username, email, and the time delay you want before an email, it will check your account to make sure you have been scrobbling. If you haven't scrobbled in that period of time it will send an email to remind you. The emails will only be sent once per period so you shouldn't receive reminders more frequently then the number of days you enter. 

Now that I have a working stack there will probably be more upcoming features, like unsubscribe and actually informative emails. 

Some technical details:

Running on my Slicehost account now that Drinklogs is no longer there. 

My first Pylons projects since I needed to learn it for work. Also with Turbomail since Python emailing is horrible. 

Deployable with one command! 

Dingus and Pylons do not get along well.

This was mostly a project to play with some other cool technologies. Sadly I didn't really need a asynchronous  queue as Turbomail is plenty fast in my daemon process. Otherwise I would have used Beanstalkd in the project. For the next version of Drinklogs though I certainly will. 

Friday night my family and I went to Ron's Original Bar and Grille which lists a great beer selection online. When we arrived there was a 30 minute wait for for a table so we headed to the bar to begin the night's drinking. 

Through the night I wound up with:

1. Young's Double Chocolate Stout
2. 21st Amendment Monk's Blood
3. Weyerbacher Hotel Ale

I somehow forgot to post about my Sunday trip to the city for dinner at Fogo de Chao for my grandfather's 78th birthday.

While there my father ordered some chianti which was good but I also tried Brasileira Xingu Black Beer. The Xingu was darker of two Brazilian beers at Fogo. It was poured cold into a frozen glass but was nicely carbonated with a sweet taste that eventually flattened out. I left a bit to warm slightly but it was a bad move. This was really much better cold.

Karen and my father were excited to get some Licor 43, a Spanish liqueur. The taste was amazingly similar to cream soda and my brother even enjoyed it despite his dislike for most alcohol.

After the early dinner at Fogo we made the few block trip to Monk's, my first. I was excited to try Duvel Green. It wasn't really my taste but I think my pallet was off a bit from dinner and the Licor. I stuck to the Belgian imperial stouts that night and since all of them had a similar taste I will refrain from passing judgement on any others. I'll definitely be back though for some proper tastings. 

Not my favorite but the ones I've consumed the most. I am using my Drinklogs data up until January 15th, but I also only started it in February of 2009.

1. D.G. Yuengling & Son Yuengling Lager - I drink a lot of it, 142 last year. Anytime I go somewhere not carrying anything special I wind up drinking Yuengling.
2. Dragani Montepulciano d'Abruzzo 2007 - My grandfather's house wine. 
3. Anheuser-Busch Bud Light - I really dislike Bud Light but I inherited a case from Karen after she wanted to give it a proper try. In my poorness I wound up finishing the case.
4. Brouwerij Huyghe Delirium Tremens - A great beer. I usually wind up getting it in 750ml bottles from Wegmans although I had a few glasses while in the UK. 
5. Miscellaneous Mixed Drinks Limoncello - Mostly Karen's homemade limoncello although I've had a few different brands and another homemade variety.
6. Miscellaneous Mixed Drinks Clemoncello - Karen also wound up making limoncello with clementines which was worth a try but not quite as good as her limoncello.
7. Hoegaarden - I purchased a 12 pack and wind up drinking it around as well. Waiting again for the warmer months to enjoy it on the deck.
8. Anheuser-Busch Budweiser - It's really not too bad.
9. Brouwerij Huyghe Delirium Nocturnum - Turning into my house beer especially after I was given Delirium glasses for Christmas.
10. Carlo Rossi Chianti - My father likes it and it comes in gallon jugs.

After finishing our requirements document for senior design, @JCourts, Tom, and I went out for a drink. Instead of our usual trip to Slainte Pub & Grill we went to try out Mikey's American Grill & Sports Bar. The last time J was there they had a better drink selection then Slainte, but it appears to have fallen since then. Mikey's has a chalk board of weekly specials and their full beer list but it wasn't being kept up to date, they were out of the beer I wanted to try. I settled with a Duvel and Justin had a Hop Devil.

We loved discovering that 8pm Tuesdays is quizzo night at Mikey's. Our table scored 3/3 on the last of the first round, although not so great on the second. Tuesdays work well since we have group meetings every Tuesday and it would be a decent place to play. Not that I can afford to go out that frequently.

The largest problem that night was the service. Our waitress was attentive for the first few minutes but we only saw her once more in the next hour until we paid the check. It was busy, they were having some sort of Red Bull/Skyy event that night, but it was still a major turn off for Mikey's.

Last evening Dale Van Wieren had his 10,000th beer at Sly Fox Phoenixville. Since it is across the street I thought I should attend. This was also the first time I've stayed at Sly Fox for a drink, usually I just buy bottles.

I started with Saison Brune which was possibly the best Sly Fox beer I've had to date and then moved to Dale's 10k. I'm not sure what he thought of the beer that he helped brew for the occasion but I wasn't particularly impressed with it. Maybe as my tastes continue to develop I could appreciate it, if they were to make it again. I did get to congratulate and shake hands with dale though. 

Drinklogs previously had Google static maps which were good for how little time they took to implement but hardly ideal. Depending on the density of the surroundings you may be more confused while trying to figure out what is in the map. 

Well no longer! I've updated locations to use javascript maps. You can check them out on each location page like so: Iron Hill Phoenixville.

There are a few improvements to be made such as clickable markers and possibly nearby locations as well. 

Friday night I met up with Dain Saint of Cipher Prime at Vesuvio in South Philly. When I got there they were shooting some pool and had had a few drinks already. Earlier that day EA Games released the iPhone version of their game Auditorium! If you get it you can also enter a contest to win a Flash version of Auditorium but submitting a picture of you beating 4:3! [Announcement]

Except for PBR, all the beer is $4 a piece. While this certainly is convenient it limits the types of beer they would serve, such as no strong dark Belgian's. They did however have Leffe Blonde and a good selection of locals including Sly Fox and Victory. This was the first time I've ever had Sly Fox on tap, despite my proximity to their Phoenixville location, and it was quite good. I find the bottles I get from Sly Fox to be rather inconsistent, even when purchased together. 

Full list for the night:

Stoudt Abbey Triple

Sly Fox O'Reilly's Stout

Abbaye de Leffe S.A. Leffe Blonde

Victory Golden Monkey

Flying Fish Grand Cru Winder Reserve

I was able to add about 6000 beers to drinklogs last night thanks to a dataset on Factual. You can see the list of new brewers on the producer's page. 

Sunday I spent the evening with Maya and Andrea at the Eisley/Say Anything show at the TLA. Beforehand I went to Manny Brown's while the opening acts played. The door time was 7 so I had some time to take in a few drinks. Plus concerts are more fun after a few drinks. 

At Manny's I had:

• Founders Breakfast Stout
• North Coast Brewing Co. Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout
• Private Weissbierbrauerei G. Schneider & Sohn GmbH Aventinus

After Eisley's great set I went back to Manny's as I was tired of some kid whose attempts to mosh amounted to hitting me in the back repeatedly.