Hello Scaly Mates, and the world,

It’s that time again – more link dumping goodness to keep the grey matter bubbling. This time around I thought I’d share a few lesser known and perhaps marginalised life skills I’ve had the pleasure of acquiring from various places on the ‘net. These tips aren’t your usual “know-how-to-get-stain-X-out-of-thing-Y” tidbits, nor do they pertain to anything particularly noble or of any particular use (time management or spiritual fulfilment for example). They’re just fun (read immature) or useful, and they involve making and fixing things, and I feel many people’s lives would be enriched by these completely unessential skills,

Brew Beer

Go on, do it – it’s fun. I started doing this in high school with a friend, after it dawned on us that although it was illegal for us to buy beer, it wasn’t illegal for us to buy the brew kits (disclaimer disclaimer disclaimer, under-age drinking is bad, don’t do it). Incidentally you don’t really need a kit, just some clean containers, measuring gear, bottles and time. Start with a malt concentrate brew (the cans you can buy in the supermarket) and work your way up from there. A handy tip is to not use the yeast that comes with the can – find a homebrew place and buy something decent. Use that brewers sugar stuff and make sure you age the beer once its bottled. If your first batch doesn’t kill you, and you’re feeling confident, try moving on to something like this. And if you’re not really a beer person, you could always go for an alcoholic ginger beer or maybe something a bit more exotic. And for those who just have to be different.

Make Some Dangerous Stuff

Or don’t – I’m not advocating anything illegal or dangerous or anything or stuff. But if you were theoretically so inclined, it might be fun to do this, or even build one of these. If neither of these ideas appeal, knowing how to do this is always a hoot. You would, of course, have to theoretically be careful.

Perform Basic Maintenance On Your Car

Its really quite empowering – It might not be your thing at all, you may not even own a car, but for those who do this site contains nearly everything you need to know, and some fun opinions as well. I could wax lyrical about how this type basic knowledge should be part of compulsory background reading for those wishing to comment on emissions, efficiency and the end of the world due to cars, but that’s for another time…

And finally,

Go to Wikipedia and hit “alt-shift-x” until something interesting happens,

Happy Monday everyone,
Wil, for The Scale of Things.