WUMF: November 2012 Edition

OK… so, I really slacked this past week.. but there’s been reasons. No… it wasn’t just because I was too busy playing Tekkit. I didn’t plan to be so slacky…

No, I didn't. Honest... I ran out of gas. I... I had a flat tire. I didn't have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn't come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake. A terrible flood. Locusts! IT WASN'T MY FAULT, I SWEAR TO GOD!

Yeah, OK… it was Tekkit.

And a few other things. With that… here’s the WUMF.

Skyfall Review
I was supposed to be doing a review of Skyfall, and in essence, Bond… Well, the end of the month came around and I didn’t want to cut into that thought process mid ramble. So, that’s coming next month, I did preface it last post, but purposely didn’t really start.

If you’re really hard up for some good Bond talk, check out haphazardstuff.com. The commentary is a little dry… kind of like Tom Bodett giving movie reviews on NPR, but his videos are pretty well done and somewhat hilarious. Put it this way… the guy did not like Brosnan as Bond, and he uses a lot of clips from The Matador to describe Brosnan’s post Bond mindset.  Priceless.  Plus... Cannonball Run redone with all James Bonds.

Game of Thrones Giveaway: The Westeros League
Well, I pulled it off at the 11th hour. After Season 2 of GoT ended, I started thinking about doing some designs. I had already put out a couple of ideas, but had never seen the show. Then, a friend lent me season one and I gobbled it up. Then, another friend fed me all of Season 2 from his thumb drive… Shhhh, don’t tell…. And I was loving it…. And then scared of a vagina wraith coming to get me. Seriously…. WTF?!?!

So, because of that, I started planning out a set of designs called The Westeros League. 14 teams based on the various houses in the show. Tried to model them after professional… and a couple of minor league sports teams here in the U.S. After I was done, I put posts on each design ranging from the inane ramblings of a Sports Center type commentary to finally abandoning the insanity and settling on just talking about the designs themselves.

Finally, I put together a prize pack of 14 stickers, a shirt, a stein, a $20 gift card, and Season 1 on Blu Ray and hosted a giveaway. The turnout was small, compared to some others I’ve done, but I expected this with a more concentrated theme. In the past, I’ve done holidays or seasons and that usually opens up the base of entries to a more broadened spectrum of people. With a dedicated Game of Thrones theme, it focused more on those who were fans of the show and a few others. Still, happy with the results.

'Tis the Season
Thanksgiving snuck up on me and I was not prepared for the amount of time I’d be putting into getting shit done around the house and work. The giveaway run this past week and I’ve been working on that. I had to get out and do the shopping stuff with my kid and my wife, for all our food. I was trying to catch up on stuff to keep my DVR from exploding…. And well, um TEKKIT

My Pool
If you’ve been reading the blog for awhile, you know how much fun (sarcasm) I’ve had with my pool. I inherited it from my brother after he got a new one. It was an INTEX 16 foot round jobs that you assemble in fifteen minutes. Well, after three years of either being too lazy or ill prepared to close it down in the Fall, I decided I was going to it right. We cleaned out all the leaves, treated it with all the chemicals, and actually put the damn cover on the thing.

Then Hurricane Sandy said, “LOL Pitiful Hooman”. The cover came off with all the leaves and branches going into the pool. After it was all over, I attempted to clean it all back out and recover the pool. As I spouted every four letter word in the book, I noticed daylight peeking from the opposite side of the pool. Above the inlet hole, there appeared to be a foot long wide tear. I rage quit the job and tossed the skimmer. Someone asked if I could get a new liner… well, the whole damn pool is pretty much a liner. Now, I could probably try to patch it. However, I’ve spent too much time and money getting it up and running each year. I’m tired of just maintaining and pissing money away on it, so it’s either time to buy a real, more permanent pool… or just get another Intex. Thoughts? Remember, I am a cheap bastard and don’t plan on retiring in my current residence.

Winter Beer Exchange
I've done this a few times over the past year and plan on doing it again.  I have about 8 different beers to review for all you craft beer lovers.  I will probably keep notes on each, as I try them.  Since I won't be sharing with my Father-in-law.... he's on Coumadin and can't really touch this stuff right now... I can just drink the eight types in about four days and get a review out rather quickly.   Sorry, I'm not a big drinker, so two a night is plenty for me.

Here's what's on tap...er.. in bottles:

• Heavy Seas Winter Storm Category 5 Ale.
• Bell's Winter White Ale
• Bell's Christmas Ale
• Thirsty Dog 12 Dogs of Christmas
• Southern Tier Old Man Winter Ale
• Weyerbacher Winter Ale
• Anchor Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
• Great Divide Hibernation Ale 

D-Bag of the Year Awards 2012
Most of December will probably be devoted to the annual D-Bag awards. Unfortunately, it requires a lot of research on my part. I need to go back and look at all the stories throughout the year. Of course, the usual suspects will be nominated: Death, Mother Nature, Chris Brown…

I am actually thinking of just streamlining the process more to whittle down the effort of having to rehash all the nominees. Guess I’ll burn that bridge when I come to it.

That’s it, folks. Bring on December! Mayans, be damned!

WUMF: March 2012 Edition

March is at an end and that means, WUMF time.


Mega Loser
The lottery fever that swept the country for the better part of two weeks is now over.  I didn't win, so I will be back at work on Monday.   Think of it.  Had no one won last night, the potential jackpot could have been close to $975 million by end of business on Tuesday.  Almost a billion dollars for a lottery.  Unreal.  Now, at work, I coordinated our early retirement efforts and bought $176 worth of tickets.  The split for Friday's jackpot would have ended up split 44 ways resulting in around $8 million each.   A far cry from $640 million, but still appreciated. 

My own efforts with my family resulted in a few Mega Number hits but no jackpot.   I even played Hurley's numbers from LOST and got this as a fortune from dinner on Friday night.

"Money will come to you when you are doing the right thing."

Craft Beer Swap 2012

It's happening again, our first beer swap at the year.  Plenty of craft beer to drown our lottery sorrows in since we lost.  My contribution was Southern Tier Eurotrash Pilz.  Other selections are Victory Whirlwind, Breckenridge Pandora's Bock, Anchor Bock, Draai Laag Simon Girty, Blue Point Spring Ale, Anderson Valley Summer Solstice Cerveza Crema, Penn Marzen, Sierra Nevada Glissade Golden Bock, Dogfish Head Aprihop, and Victory Headwaters Pale Ale.

So far, I've had my own and the Whirlwind Wit Bier.  Wasn't a big fan of the Eurotrash Pilz, but the Whirlwind Wit was not too bad.  

Non Runner Sticker Takes Off... Running

Awhile back, I released a sticker on my stores celebrating the fact that not everyone can run a marathon.  Hell, not everyone WANTS to run a marathon.  As I sat in traffic, I noticed cars with those 26.2 and 13.1 stickers on them.   It didn't take long to figure out the owner was a marathon or a half marathon runner.   Personally, I have no interest in puking and chafed nipples.   So, the lazy entrepreneur strikes again.

 

0.0 Non Runner Pack of four stickers

Don't laugh.  It's become my best selling item recently.   

WUMF: September Edition

Ugh, it’s Fall. It’s also the end of September and that means it’s time for another WUMF.

Oktoberfest
It’s that time of year, if you don’t have enough excuses to drink beer, whether it be New Year’s, St. Patrick’s Day,… Tuesday. In any case, I’m having another beer swap at work and wanted to tell you about it.

Now we had one a couple of months ago which was geared more towards wheats and whites. I brought Penn Brewery’s Summer Berry Wheat. Others included Leinenkugel’s Sunset Wheat, Ithaca Apricot Wheat and Victory’s Moonglow Weizenbock. Overall, I wasn’t as impressed as the first round of our swap, which promoted Craft Beer Week.

For this one, I’m bringing Victory’s Festbier and hopefully, I’ll be introduced to some more great beers. Also, in Denver, the Great American Beer Festival is taking place.  This all got me to thinking.

Craft beers are nothing new. They’ve been around for a long time. And maybe it’s just because I’ve been recently exposed to the culture and didn’t notice it. Maybe I’m like someone who discovers that the little arrow next to the gas pump icon on your dashboard indicates which side the cap is on and thinks that I’ve discovered the cure for cancer and must share my wisdom with everyone. My point is that it seems like the craft beer industry is hitting a upward trend and I wonder why that is. After all, we are not exactly in the best economy and here we are spending a little more on beers than say Miller Lite and Budweiser.

Perhaps it’s a solidarity thing. After Anheuser-Busch was acquired by Belgium’s InBev it seemed like one of the last great American products was gone. They (InBev) laid off over 1000 workers and gave executives stock options that were potentially worth millions. It was a slap in the face to the American way of life… outside of Wall Street, that is. Maybe the craft beer industry is a way to get back at that offense. We’ll spend more money on locally brewed beers than throw money at companies who don’t stay inside the US. Or… it could be that craft beers, on the whole, are better than Budweiser.

Gambling in Pittsburgh
Last weekend, one of my friends from back in the day came to visit and stay with me and the misses and the monster. He and his girlfriend camped out in my recently emptied, but not renovated Red Room and we took in some gaming. On Saturday, we went to Dave and Buster’s for lunch and then in the evening we hit the Rivers Casino. Now, my buddy is a gamer in the sense that he loves poker and shoots a lot of pool for tournaments. He had been down from Williamsport area before to see the newly opened Pittsburgh casino and only had the option of playing video poker. Table games hadn’t come about, yet. This time around he headed for the Poker Room and we didn’t see him for about an hour. Meanwhile, I needed a dry run for next month when I go to Vegas… long story, there.

Anyway, since the regular table games were packed, at least there were no seats at the $10 table, which is almost too rich for my blood, I opted for playing slots with my wife and my buddy’s girlfriend. We hit the ATM before playing and took out $100. That was our limit. I gave my wife $50 and I took $50. She dropped $12 into the slot machines and came up with nothing. I dropped $20 into some of the more traditional slots and saw it dwindle to about $7.00. I took that over to another slot machine called Jungle Wild, I think, and coupled it with a $0.35 credit slip I found laying around and decided to just blow the rest of the $20 I started with on slots.

The Jungle Wild machine had a feature where you could get five free spins and that paid off in spades. My wife usually plays the minimum bet because she likes it simple. Me, I take the maximum number of combinations for a single cost per line. I managed to get the five free spins and turned my $7.35 into $38.26. Not bad. I then spent about twenty minutes watching people at the $10 Black Jack table, waiting for an opening. Finally, I got to sit down next to this little old Asian lady who didn’t speak English that much. I bought in for $40 and figured I’d be done in about 20 minutes. I say that because on my first hand, I had double aces. I split that and ended up with an A3 and another double ace. Now, I made a huge mistake because I meant to say, no more splitting… which I think you can’t do anyway. However, I made the sign for ‘Stay’ and was left with 14 and 12 against a dealer showing a King. DOH! I could potentially had another $20 added to my stack. For all us amateurs, it pays to learn a bit about gambling. Don’t be a Yinzer who wanders into the casino after a Pitt/Notre Dame game and has no clue how to play the tables. Know what the signs are and know what the rules are. It will help you. Like I said, this was a dry run for Vegas.

Anyway, after about a half hour they announced that they were raising the table to $15 which was more than I was willing to spend on a hand. So, I figured I’d play out the table minimum and leave once it changed. My little old lady friend even threw me a dollar chip to put on the Natural 20 spot which I told her not to do because it seems like a sucker bet. My buddy and the girls showed up and I handed my wife $40 in chips. I said, don’t lose those. Meanwhile, I had $40 on the table, still. I was doing pretty well and I should have left at that point. My buddy was not so lucky. He sank $100 at the Poker Room and his girlfriend sunk $100 in slots.

Once I lost the chips I had on the table, I walked away even. My buddy had a couple of dollars left and I told him to hit the slot machine I had done earlier. He put in a dollar and in one $0.80 spin, he got the five free ones which turned his dollar into $90. Not bad for dropping $100 on poker.

In all, we ended up spending $2 of our money and that’s just fine by me. I have no delusions about making a fortune at the casino. I just like to have fun.



The Pirates
Speaking of losing your shirt. Boy, what happened there? 72-90 record. Better luck next year and thanks for raising prices.  Maybe, one day, you could lose on purpose, likeYankees do.

The Steelers
I don’t know what to think here. I’m a diehard fan but I’m beginning to believe there is something to be said for the Super Bowl hangover theory. Maybe the lack of an offseason has lead to a gelling problem for the team but the offensive line is in shambles, there are far more injuries this year, across the league even, and it’s not even October. Someone put Troy Polumalu in bubble wrap until January. Once again, the fines or lack thereof in some cases are ridiculous. Haynesworth has yet to receive a suspension for violating the conduct policy… something that Roethlisberger got six games for allegedly doing, yet he was never charged. Hmm, could it be that Haynesworth plays for New England. Couldn’t be, right? Goodell has probably burned all the security footage of the incident with the same match as the Spygate tapes.

The Penguins
We got Malkin back on the ice and it’s nice to know he’s back to producing. Let’s hope Sid gets back soon and in the best shape he can be in for the season. I know he’s been subjected to a lot of criticism of the years and it just screams justification over this concussion thing. But you know what? The people who criticize Crosby are the same ones who’ve never dealt with that kind of thing before. There are people who have come forward and said that their quality of life was reduced dramatically after a concussion and not even one obtained in the manner that Crosby got his. You don’t mess with that kind of thing and let’s hope there is no long term damage. The kid’s not even 30 yet.



Take care and we’ll see you next month.

American Craft Beer Week

A couple of weeks ago, Pittsburgh celebrated American Craft Beer Week.   One of the highlights was a local tavern getting in a big ole tussle with the Pittsburgh Pirates by way of a Yuengling promotion.

Beyond that, beer aficionados celebrated the best of American Beers and I was able to partake in the festivities through a beer swap with some coworkers. 

Now, I am not a huge beer drinker.  I drank beer in college because it was cheap.   As a bartender, in a former life, I appreciated the finer whisky’s and could indulge a little more than during the poor days of quarter draft nights at the local college bar.  Into my mid 30s I have pretty much forsaken alcohol except for the occasional beer during a party or glass of Rock & Rye to lube up the vocal chords during a set with my father-in-law’s band, “We Don’t Look Good Naked Anymore”.

Still, I wanted to expand my horizons and try something different.  So, I joined the swap which had two caveats.   One, I had to choose a beer I had never tried.  That should be easy.  My palate has known few brews.  I can probably count them without taking off my shows.  There are the standards; Budweiser, Rolling Rock, Coors products, Iron City, Busch, Natural Light, Pabst Blue Ribbon and Michelob Ultra.  Then we have beers like Killian’s, Black and Tan, Yuengling, Bass Ale, Heineken, LeBatt’s Blue, Guinness, Sam Adams, Straub, and others.  I’ve even tried Lone Star beer because I did the play of the same name and we ordered a case for effect.   As far as micro brews and other craft beers, I am hesitant because I really don’t like beer.  If I’m going to drink something, it better taste good to me.   But I was willing to play ball with the group.

The other stipulation on the swap was that it had to be a American company.   Besides reading every label, I was at the mercy of the distributor to point me in the right direction.  So, I went into the first one I could find, locally and inquired about a selection.

Beer Store Guy offered me one distinct selection.  It was called Dogfish Head 60 minute IPA.  I didn’t know IPA from CPA at this point so, I took it.   When I emailed my selection to the group I received a lot of congrats.  Apparently, I made a good choice.

The day came and we all gathered around a van to do the swap.   Between all of us, we would each walk away with a full case, containing three beers of each kind.  Here is the list of what I took away. 

• Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA
• Atwater Dirty Blonde Ale
• Duck-Rabbit Milk Stout
• Flying Dog Raging Bitch IPA
• Blue Point Blueberry Ale
• Leinenkugel Summer Shandy
• Forgot #1
• Forgot #2

The first ones I tried were the Dogfish Head and Raging Bitch IPA.  I am not a big fan of IPAs as it was hard to finish the Dogfish Head.  It tasted a little like Yuengling and a bit bitter.  The Raging Bitch IPA was a bit better with a little sweeter and had a somewhat piney taste to it.

The next night I tried the Atwater Dirty Blonde Ale and Blueberry Ale.  Both very nice.  The Atwater was a little like Straub, very clean and simple.  The Blueberry was clearly my favorite, although at $40 a case, I am inclined to indulge only once in a great while.

After that, I tried the Duck-Rabbit Milk Stout.  It was a very dark and heavy beer, much like Guinness.  I can see where the milk classification comes from with that one.  Then I tried the Leinenkulger Summer Shandy, which was sort of like drinking a Long Island Iced Tea as if it were a beer.    I think I’ll stick to Guinness when it comes to Stouts, although, the Summer Shandy would be a nice beer to have at the beach.

Unfortunately, I do not remember the other two flavors I had.  Suffice to say, after drinking that case inside of four days I was probably not doing myself any good.  Call me a lightweight but I needed a break from beer.  My father-in-law went back to drinking his Miller Lite and I went back to drinking water at night.  I am still trying to lose weight, you know. 

Like I said, though, I did indulge and buy another full case of the Blueberry Ale to have at home.  Broadening the horizons has given me a new respect for American Beers and I applaud those who can craft a good brew.  I even tried a Honey Wheat Ale, my uncle home brewed over Memorial Day.

Beer, welcome back into my life.  I have a new found desire to drink you a little more than I used to.

Lush.

One Burbon, One Scotch, One Beer, and Three Sippie Cups

This post contains 43% sarcasm by volume.

Trends in life, like the movies, tend to happen in groups. In 1981, we had three movies about werewolves with The Howling, American Werewolf in London, and Wolfen. This was nearly three decades before Jacob Black was a thought in the minds of tweeners. Then, in 1989, we had three underwater disaster movies; The Abyss, Deep Star Six and Leviathan. While The Abyss was clearly the better of the three films, you see that Hollywood tries to mimic itself in order to up the returns. The same thing happened with other disaster movies in the 90s. We had Deep Impact and Armageddon. There was Volcano and Dante’s Peak. There was The Thin Red Line and Saving Private Ryan, both featuring all star casts.

The same thing seems to happen in real life, especially this year. We’ve had multiple reports of air traffic controllers sleeping on the job and my personal favorite, neighborhood family friendly Americanized ethnic restaurants serving alcohol to kids.

Now, apart from Applebees being a more American based menu, the Olive Garden and Chili’s tend to lean towards Italian and Southwest Tex-Mex style cuisine, respectively. Yet, regardless of the menu, the servers seem to think that kids should be enjoying the over sized alcoholic drinks. If Chi-Chi’s was still around that would have been your ethnic food trifecta.

This is where I feel the need to take a stand. This is an outrage. Everyone needs to understand that giving alcohol to kids in restaurants is a serious offense. Giving alcohol to children begins in the home.

It starts on your daddy’s lap. I remember my dad giving me a sip of Budweiser while I was upon his knee at an early age. It was horrible. I think because of that experience, I never developed a taste for beer. Perhaps by exposing me at an early age, I was demystified by beer.  Maybe it was just that Budweiser tasted horrible.  I can't decide.

I tolerated it in college because it was cheaper than the whisky drink I would have preferred. My own child has had her share of sips from her pappy’s beer, Miller Light in this instance. But you see, today it’s OK for restaurants to ‘accidentally’ give alcohol to kids and get away with it.  If parents sue the restaurant for blatant mistakes, they are check chasers.  Yet, 40 years ago, you could be kicked out of establishments for giving your own kid a sip of your drink.

For once, I’m not talking about me. No, I wasn’t even a thought when my father got the family kicked out of Lum’s restaurant for giving my brother a sip of his beer. Just goes to show you how much things have changed and how more relaxed the drinking stigmas have gotten.

Soon, we’ll see a little league baseball team heading over to a T.G.I. Fridays for shots after they beat their division rivals at T-ball.

Drink up, kiddies.

Pittsburgh Penguins Make the Impossible Probable

OMG! There, I’ve used my txtspk quota for the day. I couldn’t believe what I witnessed on Friday. I was in the Outer Banks on vacation for the majority of the series but caught the first four games at the house we were staying at. Game Five was the 5-0 shutout in Detroit and I only caught the tail end of that when we were about an hour away from home on the PA Turnpike. Game Six we watched the tail end of on Tuesday night after going out for dinner and that was a nail biter of a 2-1 victory in Pittsburgh. Nothing could have prepared me for what was going to unfold in Detroit on Friday night. The odds were stacked heavily in The Red Wings' favor. No hockey team has ever won Game Seven of a Stanley Cup Series on the road. As far as Major League teams in North American sports the last time this happened was in Major League Baseball and that was the 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates in Baltimore for Game Seven of the World Series. That’s 30 years ago. This kind of thing just doesn’t happen a lot. The NBA has yet to do it now that LA has beaten Orlando in only five games for the championship and we don't have a team so...go figure.

The other thing that hasn’t happened in a long time is Pittsburgh winning the Stanley Cup. The last time that happened was 1992, 17 years ago, against the Chicago Blackhawks in a 4-0 series shellacking. I was a junior in high school. The previous year was Pittsburgh’s first Stanley Cup victory over the Minnesota North Stars, now Dallas Stars, in a 4-2 series. I remember Game Six of that series, very, very, well.

I was a sophomore in high school and on May 25th, I was at a graduation party at the Indian Creek Valley Community Center in Indian Head, PA. Now, as a sophomore, one doesn’t expect to be attending a lot of graduation parties for his/her classmates. I was one of those weird cases where I spent a lot more time hanging out with the upperclassmen than my own grade. It was my first high school graduation party for a non relative and it was also my first taste of underage drinking beer at a party.

As kids, we all had our moments of sneaking a drink from our parents’ liquor cabinets or our Dad giving us a sip of beer during a Steelers’ Game, but this was the first real opportunity for me to partake in celebratory libations. I wasn’t even supposed to be driving a car after midnight at this point in my life. Luckily, I got a ride to this party because I was in no shape to drive by the end of the night, or so I thought.

This was 1991, a few years before the availability of big screen viewings of events via LCD projectors and the like. Those kinds of resources were for business meetings and sports bars. I was in a Community Center nestled in the foot hills of Western Pennsylvania. We had car radios to keep us posted on the NHL action. We made as many trips to the cars to get an update as we did the keg to get more beer. By the end of the second period we were all feeling pretty buzzed and our inebriation was directly proportional to our confidence in Pittsburgh winning the series. It was a foregone conclusion that Pittsburgh was going to win this game. After trading wins through the first four games, Pittsburgh picked up momentum in Game Five with a 6-4 win over the North Stars in Pittsburgh. Now all that was needed was another win in Game Six at the Met Center in Minnesota. The Pens were up 7 nothing and it looked hopeless for the North Stars.

Wait?!? Did Jimmy Paek just score? The Korean guy just scored his only goal of the playoffs? Are you kidding me? Scratch that, it was hopeless. No offense to Jimmy, he is one of my favorites and that’s not being condescending. As the first of only two Korean players in the NHL, he is the first Korean to have his name engraved on the Stanley Cup and he has his sweater hanging in the Hockey Hall of Fame to honor that. Not bad. You have to respect that.

As I sat in the cab of a friend’s truck and cheered in a drunken state at the sound of the Pens winning their first Stanley Cup, ever, I was given some sobering news. The beer we had been pounding, heavily all night, causing us to run around like jackasses, whooping it up over a hockey game, was non-alcoholic. Immediately, the crowed stopped stumbling and started walking around, normally. A few us tested out our blood alcohol level with a self given, field sobriety test, just to make sure. Throughout this whole evening, we were only drunk on hockey and toasted the winning Pittsburgh Penguins with another cup of O’Douls.

He shoots he scores! Oh, buy Jimmy Paek a drink and get his dog one, too. Great job boys. Now if we could just get the Pirates to stop trading talent and start winning pennants we would truly be the City of Champions with no argument.