Glibertarians.com 2018 Archive

Category: Reviews

  • Pinky Out! The Fancy Beer Challenge — Part 2

    Swiss decided to challenge me again.  This time instead of the worst possible beer I could get my hands on I was to locate the absolute snootiest of snooty beer.  Unfortunately, I might have painted myself into a corner with the deadline in this one. I told him I would have it finished before the Beer it Forward piece.

    This might have been my fault.

    Up first was the second most interesting thing I could find at AJ’s, a local high-end grocer.  By high end grocer I mean in the same neighborhood as a Catholic high school with yoga pants wearing Catholic schoolgirl types.  Why the second most interesting? The most
    interesting thing was barrel aged Old Rasputin and quite frankly I already did an article on that one.  The best part was I actually wrote that one at work (Rufus).

    This one to put it bluntly is quite good.  It reminds me a lot of a Belgian quadrupel ale with a lot of spices we typically associate with fall.  I would probably enjoy it more if it wasn’t 115 degrees. Still, I give The Brurey Autumn Maple a solid 4 pinky’s out of 5

    I woke up with a splitting headache.  Slightly nauseated. Loss of appetite.

    “You’re not hungover.” Sugarfree said. He had settled himself in a lotus position on top of a rock conveniently placed in the sun.  A small mirror was in the dirt with grayish black powder strewn about its surface. He appeared to be meditating but when most people do that they normally aren’t twisting their nipples.  I hesitated to ask why he felt the need to do this naked.

    Quite frankly I didn’t want to know.

    I noticed a small pile of spent 5.56 NATO ammunition near our campground.  Next to Sugarfree’s meditating rock I found more empty cartridges along with their corresponding projectiles.  They looked like they had been pulled out using teeth as a vice.

    “What happened last night?”  I asked.

    “STEVE SMITH HAPPENED.”  Sugarfree replied.

    “I gathered that.”  I said. Sheepishly examining my ass.  Nothing out of the ordinary there.

    “You shot him six times.  It left a convenient trail for us to follow.”  Sugarfree explained. He opened his eyes. You did the worst thing you could possibly do to STEVE SMITH.”

    “…shoot him?”

    “You frustrated him.”

    “Oh…goody.”

    “That’s why I took the pews from your assault pew pew thingy and snorted the pew powder inside.”

    “Of course you did…did you do that with all 210 rounds I had?”

    Sugarfree stood atop his rock, turned around and bent over.  He let out a hearty cough while coming to a squat.  The procedure allowed me to infer he ate at few bullets.

    “37.”  He answered.  It then occurred to me I could’ve just checked my bag to see if he stole all my ammunition.  “I got full.”

    *Honk* *Honk* *Honk*

    “What the hell?”  I asked. Looking down the trail I noticed a plume of dirt approaching us quickly.

    “This just got better.”  Sugarfree explained. “He found us!”

    “Who found us?”

    A Subaru Forester came to a abrupt stop in front of our campground.  A skinny hipster wearing a dirty, vintage t-shirt and skinny jeans stepped out.  He turned and looked in Sugarfree’s direction but stopped abruptly.

    “Did any of you guys call an Uber?” He asked.

    “In the middle of the woods?”  I was confused.

    “Oh okay.  He told me you’d ask me that.” The hipster said.

    I noticed he was still behind the door.

    “Who told you that?”  I asked, still confused.

    “The man who gave me this.”  The hipster reached into the Subaru and pulled out a box.  In his haste, he
    revealed he had a bloody stump, wrapped with a linen dressing.

    “What happened to you?”  I asked.

    “He told me you would need a hand.” The Uber driver curled up into a fetal position and began to cry uncontrollably.  I opened the box to find a soft, white hand still holding an iPhone inside a red, silicone case with a white cross.

    “Judas Titty Fucking Priest.”  I said out loud, to myself.

    “He told me…you’d…say that too.” The Uber driver managed to get out between sobs.

    Sugarfree drummed a catchy tune across his stomach then twiddled his fingers in the air.  “Narrowed gaze…”

    The phone then began ringing in the classic bluegrass ringtone.

    _____

    “Hi, this is Anna with Swiss Corpse International Industries, how are you today?”  Swiss got a new receptionist. This one was particularly bubbly.

    “It’s pronounced core…”. I said flatly.

    “Please hold, I’m going to try to patch you through…I’m still learning this so in case we get disconnected call 312–“

    “No!  Don’t you fucking do it, do not give out his number! HE WILL MURDER YOU!”

    “Connecting you now.”  Swiss always has the sweetest receptionists.  It’s terrible he could never find one that meets the Swiss standard of perfection.

    “…Damnit mex.  You have any idea the pickle you have me in?”  Swiss was yelling, I pulled the phone away from my ear, slightly.

    “I’m in the woods with Sugarfree, and he lost his pants.  Do tell me how your date with the Uber driver went…did he give a reach around?”  I turned to check on Sugarfree, and found that he had gathered a number of small rocks arranged into a circle.

    “No.  Why do you think I told him to give you a handy?”  The fucker had me cornered.

    “Fine.  Go.” I said.  Sugarfree had gathered a surprising amount of kindling.

    “You have any idea how long you two have been out there?”

    “No, but I bet your watch has a date complication that confirms how long I’ve been gone.”

    “You’re damn right it does.  Without a date complication a Rolex Datejust is just a ‘just’ now isn’t it?”  For a guy that hates puns and the people that make them, he was on a roll.  Even if that one was terrible. “I didn’t think this ‘ass-dog’ thing would be such an issue for you.  So you need to get something straight….”

    Swiss was gonna straighten me out.

    “Okay…”

    “I just found the most awesome watering hole.”

    “Okay…”  I said as I noticed Sugarfree got a small fire going.

    “You should see the chick that works there.”

    “Okay…”

    “Okay?  She has an unbelievable ass.”

    “Okay…”

    “Don’t ruin this for me!”

    “Okay…sorry…?”  I gave Sugarfree an inquisitive look.  He began to examine the Uber driver’s hand.

    “You should be sorry, now I’m down three posters this week.  I’m sending Warty your way.”

    “Warty!”  Sugarfree started jumping up and down, clapping with the Uber driver’s severed hand.  I turned away since I rather not see his junk bouncing along with him.

    “What?  Why? I have this Tiny-ass Dog thing down.”  I tried my best to be confident.

    “Bullshit.  You have any idea what the commenters said last week?  We had them bitching about random shit from jezebel and jihadwatch.  Then they started to Gilmore threads on corrupted titty-links. You have any idea what happens if you don’t channel the Saturday day drinking rage towards something that’s tangentially related to beer?”

    “…..no.”  If said yes, I feared he’d send me another hipster that would be paid to cut his own heart out and eat it in front of me.  At this point Sugarfree had the Uber driver’s hand on a spit over the fire.

    “Warty is of approximate size to STEVE SMITH.  You have the best tracker, and the best possible deterrent.  Make.This.Happen.” The call was over as quickly as it started.

    “What are you doing?” I asked Sugarfree.

    “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”  Sugarfree replied.

    “I have a granola bar in my bag….” I lied.  I ran out of food several days ago, and if I had any I wasn’t about to give any to Sugarfree.

    “I can’t eat that.  I’ve totally gone Keto.”  He turned the hand over. “Sugarfree isn’t just some moniker, it’s a lifestyle.”

    _____

    We followed the blood trail.  Sugarfree was right, and since I did get a few hits it was much easier to track STEVE SMITH.  The only problem was the drops became fewer and fewer, as if he had some kind of magical healing ability.

    “He has a magical healing ability.”  Sugarfree said.  He really needs to get out of my head.  “It makes him hard to track.”

    “Seriously, you need to stop doing that.  I don’t know how I think of something and then you immediately answer me back with a relevant response.”  I said.

    “I hear voices.  Sometimes they sound like you.  Other times they are just voices.” Sugarfree replied back ominously.

    “Are you hearing any others?”

    “Just yours.”

    A soft rustling in the bushes ahead got the attention of the two of us.  I couldn’t make out what was behind it.

    “STEVE.”  I asked.  “Look we need to talk…man.  I’m not trying to hunt you or your kin.”  I flipped the safety off.  “I just want the tiny ass dog back.”

    More rustling came from behind us.  I pivoted around in a low ready stance while Sugarfree kept spinning with his arms in the air.

    “Lets be reasonable STEVE.”  I knew there was nothing reasonable about that request.

    “Look.  If you shoot me. I’m going to have to break you, and I’d rather not do that, but I will if I have to.  You already made me miss my short workout for today, and I need to make up for it.”  The voice in the bushes responded.

    “WARTY!!”  Sugarfree started jumping up and down clapping.  Thankfully he found his pants a mile back.

    “Wait, you’re Warty?”  I asked.  That can’t be Warty.  This was a guy dressed like a Victorian-era explorer, monacle and everything.  “I was expecting somebody–”

    “Bigger?”  He asked.

    “Yes.  Bigger, balder, looks like he’s seen the inside of a gym.”

    “Its just my disguise.”  Warty explained.  “Sugarfree and I go a long ways back in tracking STEVE SMITH; going back years.  He’s not the type that will approach unless he thinks he has the upper hand.  He’s been lethal as early as eight months, and I do mean lethal. I’ve hunted most things that can hunt you, but the way he moves…”

    “He’s fast.”  Sugarfree interjected.  He began doing a dance reminiscent of the TechnoViking.

    “Cheetah speed. Fifty, sixty miles an hour if he ever gets out into the open, and he’s an astonishing jumper…”  Warty continued.

    “I’ve heard this somewhere before.”  I said.

    “He shows extreme intelligence, even problem-solving intelligence.  That one… when he looks at you, you can see he’s working things out. That’s why we had to feed him like that. He was attacking the fences when the feeders came…”

    “Like an electric fence?”  I asked.

    “That’s right, but he never attacks the same place twice. He was testing the fences for weaknesses, systematically. He remembers…”  Warty didn’t come up with this line.  He got that from somewhere.

    “He totally got that from Jurassic Park.”  Sugarfree did it again.

    “I told you to stop doing that.”

    “Stop what?”  Warty asked.

    “He does this thing where I think of something, and he responds to what I am thinking with an eerily appropriate response.”  I replied.  “GET OUT OF MY HEAD.”

    “Yeah, he does that.  You get used to it.”

    “The mind reading bit?  I’m supposed to get used to that?”

    “Don’t think of it as Sugarfree listening to your thoughts.  Its more like breaking the fourth wall, except the wall is your head, and you’re his audience.”  Warty explained.  “And his purpose is to use your thoughts to terrify you.”

    “What?”

    “It doesn’t matter.”  Warty said, working the massive bolt on his Holland and Holland “Bolt Action Magazine” rifle chambered in .375H&H.  “We have a sasquatch to find.”  He began waking quietly down the trail.

    “Dog.  We’re finding my little ass dog.”  I said.

    “Sasquatch.”

    _____

    “Sugarfree.  Quiet down.”  Warty said quietly.

    Darkness had fallen.  We were peeking over the edge of a berm.  I could just barely make out the form of the little dog under a bush.

    “If I make a break for it, I bet I can grab it and go.”  I whispered.

    “We can’t.”  Warty whispered back.

    “Why not?”

    “We’re being hunted….”  Warty whispered ominously.  Sweat began to bead across his brow as he flexed the massive muscles that worked his jaw.  His disguise was fading.  He turned quickly to me.  “GO!”

    Sugarfree made a break for it.  “AYE YA YIE!”

    “Not you!  Damnit.”  Warty said.

    We both turned and saw it….

    “Clever girl…..”  Warty whispered.  The cat slowly began to walk towards us, contemplating which one of us was easier to eat.

     

    STEVE SMITH LIKE NICE KITTY.  STEVE SMITH TAKE NICE KITTY HOME.  BY TAKE NICE KITTY HOME….

    The mountain lion struggled against STEVE SMITH’S massive, hairy arms and his massive hug.  It screeched like a housecat that got caught under a wheel well in the winter when it gets cold out and it wants to get warm from proximity to the engine.

    OOOH OOOH OOOH OOOH

    “This is messed up.  Let’s just get the dog and go.”  Warty said.

    _____

    We celebrated later at a hotel and discovered they had Alesmith Speedway Stout on hand.  It was a fantastic imperial stout that rounded out our evenings with intense notes of chocolate and coffee.   I gave it a solid 4.5 pinkies out of 5.  I then considered something doesn’t add up, as a hotel probably wouldn’t have this sort of thing on hand.

    “It’s only a plot hole if you don’t acknowledge the existence of the plot hole.”  Sugarfree said.

    “I told you to stop doing that.”

     

     

  • Pinky out! The Fancy Beer Challenge – Part 1

    So…Last time, we suffered through the Bum Beer Challenge – seen here and here (Personally, I think mexican sharpshooter got the worst of it…even if his writing was much better than mine). This time the challenge was in the opposite direction. We wanted to find something so fancy that even a libertarian would sprain their pinky, holding it out as they sampled it. Their monocle would fog up and their top hat would deflate, it would be that highbrow.

    This did get me to wondering about the pinky out thing…is that really fancy, or just some made up bit that managed to worm its way into common belief?

    Still funny.

    This source says:

    People often think proper tea drinking means sticking your pinky out. That’s actually rude and connotes elitism. It comes from the fact that cultured people would eat their tea goodies with three fingers and commoners would hold the treats with all five fingers. Thus was born the misguided belief that one should raise their pinky finger to show they were cultured. Tuck that pinky finger in.

    “That’s actually rude and connotes elitism” AWW YEAH! PERFECT! We are spot on here.

    So, anyhoo, here is my entry into the Snob-off o’ beer.

     

    3 Sheeps Brewing Company hails from the noted center of culture that is Sheboygan, Wisconsin. But don’t let that fool you…they make classy beer. The best. Bigly good beer. I chose their fanciest:

    Awwww, yeah!

    SMALL BATCH: CUVEE BLEND

    We make a lot of beer. Some of it experimental, some of it pushes the boundaries of brewing, some of it puts unique twists on traditional styles — but it’s all a part of who we are. Once a year we step back, take a look at the work we’ve done, and create a special beer that draws from the best of the past 12 months. We call it Cuvee Blend. It’s a nod to the French winemaking tradition, a blend of aged beers from specially selected barrels, each chosen for their unique wood characteristics and blended in endless combinations until our palates are happy. Once we’re sure it’s perfect, the blend goes into another barrel to undergo secondary fermentation. The process is time consuming and meticulous, but we end up with something really special, something that’s more than just the sum of its parts.

    Yeah, sounds fancy to me. So what is the blend for 2018?

    19% imp stout aged in 2nd use rye whiskey barrels. 50% imp stout with toasted coconut aged in 2nd use bourbon barrels. 25% imp black wheat with coffee aged in 2nd use bourbon barrels. 6% belgian-style quad aged in 2nd use bourbon barrels.

    Now that is fancy!

    A snobby description can be found here.

    Mine own impression was that each aspect of it came forth, caressed your taste buds and bowed out for the next. The bourbon hovered in the background shepherding all this along. The coconut was quite subtle, the coffee not overpowering – it simply introduced itself, gave you a bit flavor and yielded to the rye. The rye was courtly in manner, taking your taste buds, bowing over them and stepping back to let the hint of Belgian quad finish off with a whisper.

    In lay terms…Jeebus, this was a fookin’ great beer. All sorts of good flavors, packs a good ABV too. Would swill again!

    But in all seriousness, it was one of the best beers I have had in my 52 years on this Earth.

    5 out of 5 pinkies out.

     

    Next up, Part 2, wherein mexican sharpshooter gets his fancy on.

  • A Tasting of Taliskers

    I love the Waters of Life.  I’ve never had a Japanese whiskey, but I’ve thoroughly enjoyed those from our neighbors to the north, from the Emerald Isle, and of course from here at home.  America truly makes a world-class product.  Having said all of that, there really can’t be any doubt that the king of beverages comes from that tiny scrap of barbarian-infested wasteland on the other side of Hadrian’s Wall.  It is truly the drink of philosophers.

    See those Taliskers at the left? That will be relevant shortly.
    Most of my Scotch Supply as of June 11 2018

    Tonight, I will be trying two offerings from my favorite distiller, and placing them in context with those with which I am already familiar.

    Notice how the bottles on the right are larger -- to take advantage of tax laws, the bottles purchased at the Duty-Free shop are 1000mL. Also, the prices at the I87 border crossing shop are better than the Ogdenburg crossing store.
    Our guests of honor for this evening, from left to right: Talisker 10 Year, Storm, Dark Storm, Skye, and 57 degrees North

    For accompaniments, I have bread (an awful hippie spelt sourdough), cheese (Chaseholm Farms “Moonlight” and North Country Creamery “Feta” (which completely isn’t), chocolate (Ghiradelli 72%) and water (Saratoga County Water District “Tap”).  I will also be starting with Johnnie Walker Black to use as a control and palate reset.

    My tasting notes probably aren’t going to be very helpful for a couple of reasons.  First, I lack the vocabulary of a professional taster.  This isn’t that important, because nobody else on here does, either.  The other problem is I suffer from a slight sense of synesthesia which becomes rather overwhelming when I focus intently on taste or smell.  So my experience when comparing Dark Storm with 10 year is that the horizontal amber lines of the 10 year become thicker and further apart in the Dark storm, and charcoal arcs appear next to them.  This may be the least helpful comparison made on glibertarians.com yet.  I’ll avoid any references to geometry, color or sound in my description and hopefully someone will find this interesting.

    Yeah, I don't see any difference either. But these things always show pictures of the booze in a glass.
    Down from upper left: 57 Degrees north, Skye, control, Dark Storm, Storm, 10 Year.

    If not, I’m still going to be drinking some scotch, so… win.

    All of these will be taken neat as God intended, with the possible exception of the 57 Degrees North, which is bottled at 114 proof.  That might get a splash after the initial taste.

    Enough pittle-pattle. On with the tipple!  *Drinks control*  Yup, that’s what yer basic Highland scotch tastes like.

    Talisker 10 Year: Oh goddamn this is delicious.  Mild, gentle, not very sweet, a little spice, a little smoke, a tiny hint of iodine.  No phenols coming up into the nose, a smidge of a tingle around the sides of the tongue.  *Ponders how wonderful life is now Talisker’s in the world*

    Ok, that golden moment of satisfaction has passed.  What else is here?  Talisker Storm: A lot more iodine on the nose, but not so much in the mouth.  Sweeter.  Sharper.  More of a bite, more of the bourbon barrel taste.  This would be really good with some chocolate. *Has some chocolate.* OMG.  I don’t know why exactly my mouth is warmer, but that chocolate instantly melts, coating my tongue with sweet love but letting the whisky shine through.  Another drink makes it shinier.  Shiiiny.  Better than the 10 Year?  …maybe.  Different.  Diminishing returns kick in hard when it comes to scotch, and Talisker suffers from it particularly with their base product being so good.  Sooo goood.

    Talisker Dark Storm:  This is more closely related to the 10 Year than the Storm was.  It’s very like the distillers took the 10 Year and turned up the volume.  I prefer it to the Storm. *Has a slice of cheese.*  Sweet mamajama.  I’ve gotten enough booze in me that food is tasting delicious.  I want to refill this glass, but I have two  more to taste.

    I’ve had those three before [but never done a side-by-side with the Storm and Dark Storm to convince me which I should preferentially stock (Dark Storm)].  These next two are new to me.

    Talisker Skye:  I’m confused.  I’m not tasting very much.  Maybe it’s aftereffects from the cheese?  I’ll eat some bread.  *Eats bread.* That’s really shitty bread.  Nope, not much here.  It’s less like a Talisker and more like a really flavorful Irish whiskey.  I am disappointed.  This bottle will remain around to offer to guests, but I won’t be drinking much of it.  Orrrr, maybe I’ve drunk too much and it’s killing my taste response.  *Goes back to Q’s links.*  That still works.  Well, obviously in the future I’ll need to taste this earlier in the session to make sure.

    Talisker 57 Degrees North:  This is the most expensive bottle I’ve acquired at the duty-free.  Between the fact that it’s a third larger than standard liquor store bottles and I paid for it in CAD, it’s probably not the most expensive bottle of scotch I’ve ever bought, but it’s up there.  It fucking better be good.  Holding it up to my nose is making me a little more reassured that I haven’t overdrunk my nose at least.  I’m getting definite notes of… SweeTarts. Now I’m going to have to go back to the lab and see if I have any stearic or maleic acids lying around.  I know I’ve got citric, but that’s not what I’m smelling.  First sip.  Oh.  Wow.  Yeah.  Taste buds still work.  Also, 114 proof is a bit saliva-activating.  Lemme do the math:  114/80 = I have to increase the volume by about 40%.  No wait, first let me taste it and see what I can find when it’s neat.  Ok, trying again.  It’s pretty good.  Extremely smooth, low phenols, slightly sweet, but at this strength there is a noticeable anesthetic effect kicking in after about 2-3 seconds.  Gotta get a spoon to make the dilution work.  Also, there’s not enough left in the glass, need a refill.

    Ok, going to get the spoon revealed to me that I might be a wee bit more intoxicated that I had planned.  Also tasting the control whisky proved that yes, my taste buds aren’t working properly.  So it’s a bit of a moot point to continue.  Having said all of that, adding water to get the 57 degrees North to about 80 proof really did open it up.  There’s a lot more happening there now, and in the future I’ll try again without the preliminary drinks to get a true appreciation of it.  I’ll also retry the Skye, though I don’t think it’s going to be particularly salvageable.

    Until then…

     

     

  • I Don’t Like These People; Here’s Why!

    Really?

    Virtue signaling…it’s everywhere isn’t it? At first it wasn’t that irritating, because it was easily ignored. The only people doing it were the usual suspects that would go away when their 15 minutes of fame were up. Then Twitter came along and verified how much everybody is stupid—except for you. It drives people to drink. Then the booze merchants had to get in on the act.

    I promised myself that when I finally found this I would take it out to the desert and shoot it. Sadly, it was more expensive than I anticipated so I decided I needed to get back at Stone. How can I do it if don’t have a Twitter account?

    This is my review of Budweiser Freedom Reserve Lager (limited release).

    I figure the best way to stick it to them is to leave it on the shelf and buy something else that doesn’t suit Stone’s standard of “independentness.” Even if Budweisser is technically virtue signaling with this one, at least its one I can get behind. For the astonishing price of $16.99 for a dirty dozen, Budweiser will donate a percentage of the proceeds to Folds of Honor, a Veteran’s charity.

    The problem I have with a lot of Veterans charities is how many of them, to put it bluntly: suck. Turns out Veterans like any other seemingly disadvantaged group are used to prey on the compassion of others. In fairness, if somebody wants to donate money, so long as everything is voluntary it is perfectly acceptable for a well meaning individual to do so.

    The most well known example of such a charity is the Wounded Warrior Project. To put it politely: they suck ass.  Given their celebrity endorsements, merchandising, being schilled by Bill O’Reilly every night for ten years, and their extensive marketing campaign it should be no surprise they have a high overhead. I would find it acceptable if that was the only questionable thing they were spending their donations on. TW: NY Times. Except it wasn’t; they were actually paying their executives $½ million salaries and hosting events at five star hotels. It got to the point where Charity Navigator gave them a D rating after they spent 40% of their revenue on overhead. They got better, but for many it’s too little too late. Then there are other scheisters who will use their well-known name to enrich themselves.

    Brand new spinter vans cost money, yo.

    They’re not the only ones, even DAV got a poor rating. This one is my personal favorite, run by a VA employee.

    One I do like is Pat Tillman Foundation.  I’ve participated in one of their events called Pat’s Run, where Arizona State hosts a 4.2 mile long run around Tempe Town Lake and ending at Sun Devil Stadium. Why the odd distance?  He was number 42 at Arizona State.  Its a scholarship fund.

    Folds of Honor seems legitimate enough to me, they too are a scholarship fund.

    About this beer:  if you are leaving it on the shelf because you think it’s going to suck—it might surprise you. It’s a malty red lager based on a recipe recovered at Mount Vernon. Obviously, it’s different due to Washington predating lagers. My only complaint is it could use a bit more body but to be completely honest, this one doesn’t suck. Budweiser Freedom Reserve Lager (limited release): 3/5

  • Jumping Off a Bridge with the Rest of You — Part 2

    Swiss floated this idea one evening following the daydrinking midday Saturday timeslot.  I was playing mini golf with my children at the time, because they happen to like mini golf. At first I was hesitant about the idea.  Then I remembered how much fun I had researching out an article on malt liquor titled, It Works, Every Time. I was intoxicated with the idea that only in a market based  system can something so terrible be marketable.  People actually want to drink this stuff.  Can you imagine the rancid grog they drink in Venezuela?

    Oh, right.

    I made a mental note of the bum drinks Swiss picked and noted his deadline.  Officers…he required a draft ready for Wednesday, so that it can be reviewed Thursday, scheduled Friday for Saturday at the usual time.  Which means by the time I’m ready to send it on Tuesday my team of monkeys with typewriters have to have it ready by Monday afternoon. They’ll be sitting around smoking Lucky Strikes until Thursday wondering if it got approved….

    First up, is a classic around a game of bones or at the frat house:  Mickey’s Fine Malt Liquor.

    Also a Miller product first produced in 1962, Mickey’s is best known for its yellow hornet, and the distinctive wide mouth, waffle patterned bottle.  Typically, two of these are consumed in a single sitting, at the same time.  Many fraternity initiations have insisted pledges complete an ordeal known as the “Edward Forty Hands.” Here a pledge is required to have two of these duct taped to his hands and ordered to drink both over the course of an evening.  Meet a girl? Too bad. Can’t unbutton your fly? Sorry, you’re just going to have to piss yourself.

    The first time I had this I had an unknown quantity of Bacardi Silver and puked up a sink full of foam during W’s first term.  It wasn’t my proudest moment but evidently it allowed for more gut space for the remainder of the 40. It’s still as bad and as hyper carbonated as I remember.

    This one gets 2 out of five dumpsters.

    The second one I also had issues finding initially, as my first choice was Natty Light.  I made due and decided this one was as good as any….

     

    I cracked it open, and then I saw the picture on my refrigerator.

    “Who is STEVE SMITH???  My wife asked. “Is he the guy that played for the Carolina Panthers?”

    “No, worse.”  I replied.

    “The guy on ESPN?”  Again with the endless questions.  Think! How did he get into the house?  “Hello? I’m talking to you.” She said.  “My eyes are up here!”

    Her hand struck my occiput and brought my wits back.  “Maybe not as bad as the guy on ESPN.” I had to call Swiss. I had to come up with a solution first, because Officers don’t like hearing about problems.  They like solutions…..

    ____

    “Thank you for calling Swiss Corpse International Industries, Legal Department.”  Swiss’ receptionist answered.

    “It’s pronounced ‘Core’ you stupid twit.  The last one that failed to learn that was discovered by a team of engineers testing dive watches at the bottom of Lake Geneva.”  I replied back indignantly.

    “Password accepted, I’ll patch you through.” She replied sweetly.

    I was confused.  “Password?”

    “mex, I told you never to call me at this number.”  Swiss said. Something was eating at him. Another inane project?  “You have three minutes…” No. They must have run out of Gruyére in the breakroom again. “…three minutes before I throw another receptionist into Lake Geneva.”

    Damn.  The wrong cheese AND an inane project.

    “Swiss, I have a problem.  STEVE SMITH took my dog.” I decided to be upfront.

    “And by took your dog you mean—?”

    “It’s a Chihuahua, ‘mean’ is physically impossible.  At least I don’t think it is.” I interrupted him. He hates being interrupted.  I can feel the icy, narrowed gaze through the phone.  He was intentionally burning through my three minutes with a look that could ravenously tear open lesser men like a fat kid tearing open the foil on a Toblerone.

    “Look, I don’t like hearing about problems.  Tell me about solutions here.” Judas Priest.  Right on cue.

    “The last time he was seen was in Elephant Butte, New Mexico.  I need somebody to write up the beer review this week so I can track him down and get that little dog back.” I replied. That wasn’t really a solution. He’s going to call me out in that.

    “Heh.  Elephant Butt.”

    “No. Butte.  Elephant Butte.”

    “That’s what I said, Elephant Butt.”

    “Stop that, you’re trying to waste my three minutes!”

    “Yup.”

    “Look can somebody cover my time slot this week?”

    “The way I see it, I’m down two posters this week.  You’ll need to take Sugarfree.”

    “What?  Why?”

    “Nobody knows how to track STEVE SMITH better than him.  You’ll need his help if you want to find that little ass dog.”

    “Have you ever gone hiking in the woods with that guy!?”

    “Pfft. No…Sucker.”

    “That’s not funny.”

    “For me it is.”

    “Can somebody cover me or not?”

    “Yeeeesh, I got it.  I drank an Old English the other day before a board meeting.  The vice-chairman is lucky I didn’t break his wee head off and used it to play rugby.”

    “Umm.”

    “Just meet Sugarfree in Silver City.”

    “Truth or Consequences is closer, and they have an airport.”

    “Tell me about it.  I’m stopping you here.”

    “That wasn’t three minutes.”

    “I know.  I’m wearing a Swiss made, COSC Certified, Omega Speedmaster Man on the motherfucking Moon.  I stopped the chronograph at precisely 2:37 as certified by the Swiss government, because you didn’t come to me with a solution.  This call is over.”

    _____

    “New Mexico.  Its like regular Mexico just with more hippies, sensually fellating carne asada across their thin, pale lips…”  Sugarfree was trying to make conversation.

    “You know, you don’t have to do that.  In fact by making so much noise we’re never going to find STEVE SMITH.”  I interrupted him. Turns out, Sugarfree doesn’t like when people interrupt his stream of consciousness.

    The forest was like any other.  Dry. Green. Patches of dead pine needles strewn across the trail with the occasional dog turd.

    “I lost it.  Who are you? I don’t know where I am.”  He began questioning his existence again.

    “I’m mexican sharpshooter, and Swiss sent you here to help me track STEVE SMITH so I can find my tiny ass dog.”  I explained—for the third time that day.

    “Wait, you called Swiss?”

    “Yes.”

    “At work?”  Sugarfree stared at me, in wide eyed terror.

    “Yes.”

    “Last time I called him at work he sent me his receptionist’s finger.”  He explained.

    “What?”

    “Wanna know where I put it?”

    “Judas Priest, NO!”

    “No need to yell.  The note said, ‘That’s the last time you point fingers at me.’”

    “Wait, he mailed you a pun?”

    “Right?”  He twiddled his fingers in the air.  “Narrowed gaze….” Sugarfree giggled while he pulled a large vial hanging around his neck, popped open the top and gingerly pulled out a tiny spoon.  He then snorted the contents of the spoon. “It keeps me focused…where were we?”

    “Finding STEVE SMITH.”

    “Is that why you have an assault pew pew thingy?”  He said with wide, bloodshot eyes.

    “Yes.  I’m anticipating that I will have to shoot him.”

    “You’ll need a bigger gun.  We should’ve brought Warty.”  Sugarfree stared at the back of his hand.  He then began fumbling the feather boa I purposefully pretended not to notice, around his neck.

    “What are you doing?”

    Sugarfree grasped the boa firmly and pulled it tight around his neck.  His other hand reached into his chinos and rubbed furiously.

    “You need a few minutes?  I can be over there, where this is slightly less awkward.”  I offered.

    Sugarfree kept rubbing.  He stared, unblinking with a small drop of blood running down his nose, into his mouth.

    “It helps me if you say something dirty.”  Sugarfree whispered.

    I raised my AR and flipped off the safety.

    “Relax, I’m just fucking with you.”  Sugarfree pulled his hand out of his chinos to reveal a Beanie Baby.  He tied some fishing wire around its neck and hung it on a nearby tree branch.  “STEVE SMITH needs to be lured by the smell of taint. We’ll set up camp over there.”

    _____

    “Aye-ya-yie!”  Sugarfree shouted in the middle of the night, I woke up, startled.  I grabbed my rifle. “Oooh.  Oooh.  Oooh. Oooh.”

    “Aye-ya-yie!”  He just kept on yelling. “Oooh.  Oooh.  Oooh. Oooh.”

    “What are you doing?”  I asked.

    “I’m communicating with STEVE SMITH.”  Sugarfree replied. “Aye-ya-yie!  Oooh.  Oooh.  Oooh. Oooh.”

    “What, is he here?”  I flipped off the safety on my AR.

    “Yes.  He wants to skeet in your hair.   Aye-ya-yie!”

    Then I turned around and saw him.

    STEVE SMITH AYE-YA-YIE ON BROWN MAN

    OOOH OOOH OOOH OOOH

    _____

    At that point I came to with this little ass dog licking my face.  I was about halfway through the can of Hurricane when I woke up from the lucid nightmare.  I am never drinking this shit again.

    1 dumpster out of 5.

  • Jumping Off A Bridge With The Rest Of You – The Bum Beer Challenge

    Swiss Servator

    I believe it was Brett who warned mexican sharpshooter sometime back about his beer reviews, something to the effect of not letting the commenters goad you into joining them should they jump off a bridge. Well, ms did at least fall off a small pedestrian bridge at the commentariats urging…reviewing “Earthquake“.

    Well, never learning from other’s mistakes…I saw a bit of banter in the comments of one of ms’ fine beer reviews:

    Almost immediately my brain’s higher functions shut down and I started pestering ms “hey, lets do a bum beer challenge! I can do a couple and you can do a couple!” Now the good messican resisted at first, but I whinged enough to get him to relent.

    I decided to open with a classic – Olde English 800. It got me to thinking…you know what else Olde and English we had at least 800 of around? Yeah….the common law. Not everything we brought over from England was worth casting aside, like tea over coffee or boiled beef. The common law was a keeper. In fact, when various States set up their Constitutions, they would often explicitly keep such. Virginia for example;

      “That the common law of England, and all statutes, or acts of parliament made in aid of the common law, prior to the fourth year, of James the first, which are of a general nature not local to that kingdom, together with the several acts of the colony then in force, so far as the same may consist with the several ordinances, declarations, and resolutions of the general convention, shall be considered as in full force, until the same shall be altered by the legislative power of the commonwealth.”

    So, was Olde English 800 one of these Colonial legacies? Hardly. It is a product of the Miller Brewing Company and joined us in 1964. It has been a staple of bums, highschoolers and college kids looking for a cheap drunk ever since. It has a bit of an evil reputation – receiving less than flattering reviews from those that care to do such.

    Up first…

     

    A sniff was a bit alarming. It reminded me of the stale beer you would smell in leftover plastic cups from a college kegger…the next morning when you were trying to remember if you had 13 or 14 beers, and really didn’t want to smell the leftover Natty Light in cups strewn about the living room and front porch.

    Taste – like corn syrup and despair, mixed and chilled. Then came the slightly to moderately unpleasant aftertaste. Some subsequent slugs of it didn’t help. I decided to pour the rest of the bottle out, in memory of departed comrades (but not the really cool ones, just the meh ones). RATING: 1 out of 5 dumpsters.

    Next up, I had planned to do King Cobra Malt Liquor – Anheuser-Busch’s answer to Olde English 800. I am disappointed that I was unable to find it around anywhere. Oh, not because I expected it to be any less vile than OE 800….but I had teed up some funny:

    Sorry, Commander. Maybe next time.

    and some interesting:

    Queen’s Cobras Regiment, Royal Thai Army

    But the story of the Queen’s Cobras, serving in Vietnam, will have to wait for another time.

    Instead, I drew forth the local Wal-Mart’s latest bum beer – Rockdale Light. Fortunately, it came in bum cans (24 oz) too (I suspected one can would be enough for this lifetime). Unlike OE, the Rockdale seems to have a bit more of a moderate set of opinions.

    Yes, Rockdale LIGHT…I am watching my Glibfit calories.

    Slipping the tallboy into its paper sack, I cracker ‘er open. Could it be that the craft beer revolution had come to bum beers? I tried a sniff and got…nothing. Huh. I mean, zero. Odd that…. OK, on to taste. Hmmmm. Similar. It was the Oakland of beers – No there, there. A little bit of an aftertaste of something resembling beer. 24 oz of 4ish % ABV….nothing. Not high enough alcohol content for a true bum beer, but by God, I can see cases of this being drained by thirsty undergrads, furtive highschoolers and others on a budget/not desiring taste, merely effect. I mean, $1.29 for a 24 oz can isn’t bank breaking. Dump a couple in a cheap plastic pitcher and here you go! Gets the job done, maybe a bit slower and you may end up a bit bloated by the sheer volume you would have to consume…but a success for the category. RATING: 3 out of 5 dumpsters.

    Later today, in Part 2, mexican sharpshooter suffers because of my enthusiasm.

  • Movie Review: Otoko wa Tsurai yo

    You cannot step in the same river twice
    -Heraclitus

    Travelling salesman makes his way back to his hometown after leaving in a huff twenty years earlier because of a fight he had with his father. A prodigal son story, but Tora-san is not your typical character. Vulgar, heavy drinking and incapable of following social norms, this semi failure of a salesman is a combination of Dice Clay and Forest Gump. He is exactly what his hometown needs and he gives it to them good and hard.

    The creation of writer/director Yoji Yamada, Otoko wa Tsurai yo ran for an incredible 48 installments from 1969-1998. Western audiences and critics have largely failed to embrace Yamada’s masterpiece which stands in contrast to the love Akira Kurosawa (Yojimbo, Seven Samurai), Yasujiro Ozu (Tokyo Story), Takashi Miike (Ichi the Killer) and other Japanese directors have received over the years. Wanting to see Japan as subtle, cinematically pleasing and inscrutable or violent and grotesque, Western audiences just couldn’t find a place in their hearts for Yamada. Otoko wa Tsurai yo presents Japanese as people with simple, base desires and flaws that are universal. Tentacle porn can be amusing, but it doesn’t really help you understand what the average Japanese person is thinking.

    The plot for the 48 installments is simple: Tora-san, played by Kiyoshi Atsumi, returns to the Shibamata area of downtown Tokyo, falls in love with a woman known as the “Madonna” character and causes all hell to break loose with his antics. The “Madonna” shows interest in Tora-san, but his awkwardness with women destroys any chance he had with her and she ends up getting together with another man whom she was destined to be with. The series is a love story despite the crude jokes and domestic violence.

    I am Tora-san. I may not step out of your bathroom, patting my stomach and compliment you for having the fanciest toilet I’d ever seen. “That’s the sink, you idiot!” I haven’t bitch-slapped my demure sister for no good reason other than being drunk off my ass. I’ve yet to make jizz jokes at formal dinner parties where my sister is being introduced to her ultra conservative potential in-laws. I have mistakenly asked my mother-in-law, at first meeting, if she was still born. I’ve asked the elderly check out lady at the supermarket where she kept the breast milk. (Bo-nyu is breast milk, To-nyu is soy milk. Whoops.) We all fuck up and Tora-san is a ninth degree black belt in it.

    We don’t toss Tora-san in a pot of boiling water for a couple of vital reasons. First, he is an injection of chaos into what can be an oppressive and stratified group-centered society. Tora-san’s outrageous behavior gives the audience a look at the Honne (real feelings) of average people. They may look stoic, but all Japanese people have wanted to crack a relative in the head at some point. Many have a great spooge pun pop into their head during a meeting, but they keep it walled off behind their Tatemae (social face). Tora-san is a vent that releases some of the steam in a country that has 30,000 or so suicides a year. Good on him.

    Another reason we accept Tora-san is that without him, the star-crossed lovers would never end up together. Love, it seems, needs someone to smack it out of its reluctance. The “Madonna” can’t hook up with her true love unless someone kicks him in the balls and tells him to stop being such a pussy. While Tora-san’s advice may be awful, following terrible advice is better than whining like a bitch in the corner.

    At the end of each installment, Tora-san leaves Shibamata in an act of temporary self-exile. He has to leave of his own accord or he wouldn’t be allowed back. Pushing people to their limits and then backing off, giving them time to digest what happened, is a skill sorely missing these days. Being 100% pure, concentrated chaos, Tora-san realizes that prolonged exposure to chaos would destroy his family. He leaves Shibamata and crosses the Sumida river until his services are needed once more. You may not be able to step in the same river twice, but you can piss in it multiple times.

    The opening scene:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4mb5PbkxxY

     

  • Something for Everyone

    I like to think there is a little something for everyone here.  It isn’t necessarily out of spite that I do this, but I’ve drawn inspiration from the comments before.  Why stop now?


    This is my review of Perrier Peach.  Hat Tip:  mikey.


    What, this isn’t beer?  You don’t say?

    I actually drink a lot of these during the day a a substitute for something else I used to drink a lot of:  energy drinks.  About a year ago I stopped when it occurred to me that I was drinking three to four of them a day.  It all started during the fall 2007 when I was assigned to the airfield lighting crew.  It was a nice gig at the time because all airfields are a high voltage series circuit.  Each light is connected to a device called an isolation transformer, which is connected in series with each other like Christmas lights, so it is easy to troubleshoot.

    It also meant we had to complete the check prior to the start of the ops day, which meant I reported in at 0430.  I compensated for this when I discovered something called Boo Koo Energy Drink.  This eventually led to me switching to sugar-free energy drinks due to a concern for the amount of sugar I was drinking. 

    So why stop?  It had absolutely nothing to do with concern for aspartame which is a bit of a myth.  It turns out there is no causal effect between aspartame and cancer.  This, according to the American Cancer Society.

    It really didn’t have anything to do with concerns over aspartame and nerulogical disorders either.  Apparently, this is the claim floating around the ether:

    75% of the adverse reactions to food additives reported to the FDA each year including seizures, migraines, dizzinesss, nausea, muscle spasms, weight gain, depression, fatigue, irritability, heart palpitations, breathing difficulties, anxiety, tinnitus, schizophrenia and death.

    None of these are linked to aspartame.  In anything, these symptoms have more to do with other compounds like food dyes, used in products along with aspartame.  It’s only been used in food products since the 80s, if it caused seizures wouldn’t this kind of information show up beyond WordPress sites and Facebook memes?

    Finally, I didn’t stop drinking them because energy drinks are all that dangerous.  In fact, there are no fewer than 2097 studies on the subject, as determined in a literature review published in 2014.  They concluded,

    Energy drink consumption is a health issue primarily of the adolescent and young adult male population. It is linked to increased substance abuse and risk-taking behaviors.

    In other words, people that engage in risky activities, like to drink Red Bull.  Funny, given Red Bull markets itself with people that engage in high risk activities.

    Red Bull is not responsible for injury, accidents, or death resulting from extreme sports

    So why did I stop drinking energy drinks?  I never let my kids drink soda, and it seemed hypocritical that I drink so much of it in front of them. So I quit.  The caffeine withdrawal subsided after a couple months but I still choke down a cup of coffee or two.  The mineral water is…nice.  Its water, but with little bubbles.  The lime flavored one is much better; the peach is weird.  Perrier Peach:  0/5.

  • What Are We Reading – May 2018

    Old Man With Candy

    After a conversation with Warty, I remembered perhaps my favorite scientific biography ever, Oliver Heaviside: The Life, Work, and Times of an Electrical Genius of the Victorian Age by Paul Nahin, and have been giving it a reread. Heaviside is only vaguely known among people in the physical sciences (I only knew the name because of the Heaviside step function in math), but ought to be far better known; for example, what physicists and engineers think of as the Maxwell equations (the foundations of electromagnetic theory) are actually the Heaviside equations. Maxwell’s formulation was clumsy and complex- Heaviside reworked them into a simple but comprehensive set of partial differential equations, the ones familiar to contemporary students and practitioners. His operational calculus laid the groundwork for Laplace transform methods routinely used in circuit analysis. His work solved the massive problems of the nascent telegraphy and telephony technologies and brought us into the 20th century.

    But that’s what makes him interesting specifically to geeks. What makes him interesting overall is the sociology associated with him. Unlike most prominent British scientists of the era. Heaviside was a true outsider, born into poverty, and completely self-taught. Moreover, he was an odd personality, and if he were alive today, we’d put him somewhere on the autism spectrum. He had almost no social interactions beyond his immediate family, refused to adopt the manners and mores of the gentlemanly scientists with whom he interacted in scholarly journals, and larded his papers and books with thinly veiled invective and humorous insights (“It is wonderful how little work there is when you know how to do it.” “It is as unfair to call a vector a quaternion as to call a man a quadruped.”). Of course, establishment figures fought to keep this outsider outside, but the sheer power of his intellect swept that aside. Trigger warning: to understand what Heaviside did, some equations will inevitably present themselves. If you’re on the other side of CP Snow’s two worlds, you can skip over them and take my word that what he did was brilliant, significant, and vastly influential. This book is fascinating, a study in sociology and psychology as much as it is about physics, an absolute delight.

    SugarFree

    I had been meaning to read Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer since it won the 2014 Nebula for Best Novel, but it wasn’t until the announcement of the Netflix adaptation that I finally got around to it. It involves a scientific expedition into Area X, a portion of the southern United States coast that has been inexplicably quarantined by an invisible and deadly barrier with a single, deliberate opening to allow people to explore. Inside, mutant animals and an inexplicable structure beg to be explored. Almost everyone that goes dies or disappears or comes back insane, with amnesia or riddled with strange cancers.

    I really have to say, I don’t understand the hype around this book. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t really anything groundbreaking or even exciting. It is written in a limited viewpoint from an unnamed and probably unreliable narrator in a journal. In fact, none of the characters have names and are just referred to by their job or functions on the expedition, The Biologist, the Linguist, The Psychologist, etc. In an experiment to find the optimum psychological conditions for an expedition that can both survive and return with some sort of coherent information about the conditions inside the barrier, all the members on this trip are women.

    Like much modern music, it seems like VanderMeer took a dozen or so better works, threw them into a blender, and hoped the reader wouldn’t find too many recognizable chunks floating around in the slurry. But I’m good at spotting chunks: There are bit and pieces of Solaris, Roadside Picnic, Rogue Moon and–for the first two–their cinematic adaptations, as well as all the movies and books derived from them (Event Horizon, Cube, et.al,) countless “found” memoirs of the inexplicable, the mind-flaying horrors of Lovecraft and even a solid piece of gristle from Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket.

    The movie is a pretty disappointing follow-up to the excellent Ex Machina by Alex Garland. It takes a few things from the novel, but otherwise pretty much ignores it to create a strange mash-up of “The Colour Out of Space” and The Crystal World by J. G. Ballard (minus all of Ballard’s Heart of Darkness overtones.)

    Riven

    I finally passed my exam and have been celebrating by reading exactly nothing–except the dialogue in Persona 5. That said, Mr. Riven and I listen to some podcasts when we’re lifting or traveling. Last week we traveled to Missoula for the USPSA Area 1 Championship. Mr. Riven has been especially delighted with his recent find of the Myths and Legends podcast. It dovetails nicely with his current game of choice–God of War. The writer and host covers a wide variety of, well, myths and legends with a good deal of fairly dry humor and a flair for entertaining. Besides the Norse lore that’s so apropos for God of War, they also cover Slavic fairytales, epic Viking tales, and all of the standard classics: Greek and Roman mythology, King Arthur’s court, mythological beasts, etc. There’s plenty more besides what I’ve listed here, and we greatly enjoyed a lot of the Slavic tales on our trip. Fans of John Wick might also appreciate the stories that include Baba Yaga, who is seems to be equal parts hilarious and terrifying (just like an ancient boogeyman should be).

    mexican sharpshooter

    It came to my attention that my younger brother was not a prog, but is still in college, so I decided to pick up a few books he might benefit given his environment.  I got through this one pretty quickly, given Bastiat is pretty straightforward and concise.  I also picked up The Road to Serfdom.  This one is taking me longer.

    I also bought The Federalist Papers since I never read them.  I have to admit, I don’t like Hamilton.  I can deal with his arguments droning on, taking several pages and multiple essays to convey–I’ve read boring stuff before.  I simply find a lot of them ineffective, and he does not always adequately explain why something regulated by a state might be bad but it is totally okay for the federal government to do it.  It might be my biases as a former federal employee, and seeing ineffective, incompetent implementation of seemingly simple tasks for several years.  I do realize I should try to decouple that when reading a historical document.  I found myself flipping through Hamilton’s essays and finding the next one Madison wrote as his seem better thought out.  In all, it leaves me wondering if the natural born clause in the Constitution was intentionally written to keep certain assholes from being president, a certain asshole named Hamilton.

    Web Dominatrix

    I just started (and then finished in swift order) To Sell Is Human by Dan Pink. As a business owner I have to spend time selling, and I’ve hated it for years, which is why I was so delighted to discover this book which explains how to sell without feeling like a sleezeball backed up with case studies.

    I am now reading The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg as my habits need some major work. There are habits I have that are good, others that are bad, and others that just simply aren’t serving me in the best way.

    Tulip

    I would like to recommend three short story collections. First is American Housewife by Helen Ellis. These are great little vignettes. My two favorites are “The Wainscoting War” and “My Novel Is Brought to You by the Good People at Tampax.”

    The second is Let Me Tell You by Shirley Jackson. I love her short stories. She is probably familiar to most as the author of The Lottery. She also wrote The Haunting of Hill House. I read that in one sitting when I was fifteen. It was a hot, August day and when I finished, I was in a cold sweat. I’m still not sure why, but that book creeped me out like no other.

    The last is Beyond the Woods: Fairy Tales Retold by various authors. Most are based on old tales, but with a modern twist. They are dark, creepy and sometimes funny.

    SP

    I’ve just started reading Bad Things Happen (David Loogan Book 1) by Harry Dolan. I’m enjoying it very much so far. It’s a noir-ish mystery, which I love in books and film. If it stays true to the promising beginning chapters, I’ll most likely pick up the rest in the series.

    Also reading several vegetarian and vegan cookbooks. I’m getting a little tired of the same old plain stuff I’ve been eating during my 60 day 100% plant-based window (in which I’m trying to cement the practice), and need to mix it up some. Highly recommended: The Complete Vegetarian Cookbook: A Fresh Guide to Eating Well With 700 Foolproof Recipes from America’s Test Kitchen. 250 or so of these recipes are vegan. I’ve cooked from this before and everything just works. I’m thinking about putting a post together with brief reviews of several others, if there is any interest.

    And, last, but certainly not least, a quick read through Year-Round Indoor Salad Gardening: How to Grow Nutrient-Dense, Soil-Sprouted Greens in Less Than 10 days by Peter Burke has inspired me to begin growing soil-raised sprouts in the house. I love that I’ll be able to do so next winter!

    Brett L

    I finished Mark Lawrence’s latest, Grey Sister. Its probably his least best work, and still better than almost anything out there in the SF/F genre right now. It definitely ends on an Empire Strikes Back note, so I expect the third one to really kick ass. I read John Conroe’s latest collection The Demon Accords Compendium, Vol. 1. I give it a B. I think that universe has mostly run its course. And then Exam Ref 70-532 Developing Microsoft Azure Solutions because this Azure shit is hot and I need to keep my LinkedIn profile popular. Azure is fun and I wish I was 23 and single and could spend 2 or 3 nights a week messing around in it for 3-5 hours at a time.

    STEVE SMITH

    STEVE SMITH READ ABOMINABLE BY HOOMAN WRITER DAN SIMMONS. ABOMINABLE LONG BOOK BUT SHORT ON HOT YETI ACTION; STORY ALL MOUNTAIN CLIMBING AND NAZIS! STEVE SMITH FIND HOOMAN SIMMONS AND STEVE SMITH SHOW HIM WHAT ABOMINABLE REALLY MEANS!

    jesse.in.mb

    AWOL on the Appalachian Trail: I have a confession to make. Travelogues make me bitter; I was miserable thinking about how little I’d traveled while watching The Secret Life of Walter Mitty…on a flight to spend a week in Berlin and Prague on my own for New Years, and was bitter *both* times I saw Under the Tuscan Sun (some of you are too young to remember when airlines just played one movie at a time)…while flying back from a month in Rome with side trips through the Tuscan countryside. So I reaaaally shouldn’t have read this delightful travelogue about hiking the AT because his motivations felt familiar and the adventure sounds absolutely awful, but doable.

    Happy Dreams: This novel, about a peasant who moves to the city to be a trash picker, was a constant aggravation and a struggle to read, but I’m glad I kept chipping away at it. Toward the end of the novel I ended up caring about the characters even if their behavior still grated deeply. The author’s afterward really should’ve been the intro. Once I understood where he was coming from the entire story came together as beautiful in its grind.

    Macbeth: A Novel: Audible had it on sale, and it was read by Alan Cumming. I’d never read it or seen the play (unless you count THRONE OF BLOOD), and I figured Cumming reading Macbeth would be awesome…except it’s not Shakespeare’s Macbeth, it’s Macbeth: A Novel. I kept thinking it didn’t *seem* very Shakespearean, and then looked into a it a bit and was annoyed.

  • Death of Stalin Review

    I once again entered the local hipsterplex to watch The Death of Stalin. The trailers before the film established once again that as a glib I was a stranger in a strange land. There was a trailer for a sad looking rodeo movie and a documentary about Ruth Bader Ginsberg which received audible applause from the audience. After the applause I couldn’t help but wonder what the rest of the audience thought of the film and of Stalin. I assume they all disliked Stalin but likely had blinders on for certain aspects of why he was terrible which is a trait I believe the film mostly shared.

    The film is directed by the creator of the HBO show Veep. I haven’t seen any of that show so I can’t comment on the similarities. The film’s tone reminded me of a more cosmopolitan take on Monty Python, less loose, less cutting. The Python connection is reinforced by the presence of Michael Palin as one of the minor cabinet members Molotov. The film brought forth a couple chuckles but it didn’t really have any laugh out loud moments. The film mostly explores what totalitarian power does to people, the mind games, the unsure standing and most of all constant fear.

    The film begins with a concert performance where Stalin calls the control board and asks them to call back, they do so only to find out he wanted a recording of the performance; unfortunately it wasn’t recorded. The reaction of the control board to this simple misunderstanding is the first example of the constant fear, the crew close the doors and prevent the orchestra and most of the audience from leaving this goes on for a while and a great deal of drama happens for a recording Stalin is likely only to listen to once. Stalin falls ill maybe a quarter way through the film and immediately the now open struggle for power begins before he is dead. In the film there are three main people in the straggle for power and they are arguably the three main characters of the film. They are Simon Beal as Beria, the director of security forces, Steve Buscemi as Khrushchev, head of the party and Jeffery Tambor as Malenkov.

    Steve Buscemi’s Khrushchev is pretty much Steve Buscemi, a bit neurotic but not to Larry David levels. Khrushchev has the main character arc of the film. He starts out as one of many ministers and isn’t particularly powerful within the dynamic of the group, but he rises to the occasion and ends up leading the group against Beria. The film seems to present him as the good one, the smart one, the reasonable one, and the film is largely about how the totalitarian system of the Soviet Union under Stalin corrupts him through the horrible things he must do to survive.

    Beria is portrayed as the villain, the one who gets things moving and forces a power struggle. He plots, he schemes, and seems to have been preparing for this for years. He is shown as being the most linked with Stalin’s system of terror and violence, but the most willing to openly distance himself from Stalin and the past. Simon Beal’s performance as Beria is tonally inconsistent; at times he is just goofy and slapstick as the rest of the group, but there are other moments where he seems to come from a darker and much more serious movie.

    Tambor’s Malenkov is quiet, nervous and confused. He doesn’t seem very intelligent and reminded me of Lurch from the Addams Family, which made it funnier for me when Beria compared him to Boris Karloff. His character isn’t very active throughout the film and the performance doesn’t go very deep because of that. He inherits the position of leader once Stalin dies and it seems like he was put in that position by Stalin as a political pace car for the rest of the ministers.

    Strangely, but not super surprisingly, the film doesn’t really address communism, there are hints towards it but for the most part the focus is on the idea of Stalin as a dictator who rules by murder and fear. The film goes into the constant cautiousness and the double think it requires to survive in Soviet Russia, but it never really explores how or why this system came about. One instance where a better understanding of how the filmmakers feel about this would have improved the film, is when we are shown the shabby conditions that Khrushchev and the others live in. Is this to show how even the powerful are poor under communism? Or more likely is this shown as a contrast to the wealth Stalin lives in and how a dictatorship is the ultimate system of inequality?

    Ultimately, the film has left me inspired to show my appreciation for this platform to ramble about movies by starting a coup of my own and rise up against the Eternals in The Vortex and post the first and almost certainly last Waterfall Insurance links. I also thought I would try something else new and stay on topic.

    • First the real deal.
    • And the NY Times. They almost get it right but they throw in a couple lines brown-nosing Mao.
    • The NY Times again, so brace yourself against the paywall, this time about Khrushchev.
    • And I will end with a music link a childhood favorite. My mom hated this song, especially when my brother would play the video on the living room tv.