Monthly Archives: February 2014

February 28, 2014 · 8:35 am

Binge-Watching

Binge-watching (sometimes called binge-viewing) is when you watch two or more episodes of the same show in one sitting. Watching episodes back to back is the best way to really become immersed in a show. Nobody wants to wait a week between episodes to find out what happens next. This is the MTV generation. We need instant gratification. The binge-watching trend started happening in the early to mid-2000s. TV shows started to become more cinematic. Productions costs went up, shooting in HD became the norm, and they started releasing full seasons of shows on DVD, all while Netflix began to popularize streaming. This was the perfect storm which lead brilliant writers, directors, and actors to realize that TV was the perhaps the best way to tell a story. The stories became longer, more complex, and more compelling for the viewer to keep on watching. And if you have access to a full season, why would you only watch one episode of Breaking Bad at a time if you can watch four episodes? Binge-watching isn’t going away. You sit on your ass for a few hours, watch an entire season of Mad Men, you feel like you accomplished something, and nobody can blame you because they’ve done the same exact thing.

Critically Rated at 14/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

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February 28, 2014 · 8:33 am

Reptilians (conspiracy theory)

There are a lot of people who believe that shape-shifting aliens control the world. Supposedly the Reptilians are reptile-like humanoids that have infiltrated the top levels of governments and corporations around the world and use their power and influence to wreak havoc. They are responsible for hurricanes and tsunamis and they masterminded 9/11. And you are an idiot if you think that they have any influence on Earth. I’m not trying to be mean, but I’m not going to sugarcoat it for you. You are a fucking idiot if you think that lizard people from space are a global threat. There’s no way that Reptilians rule the planet. The Illuminati keep the Reptilians under control and confined to New Jersey.

Critically Rated at 7/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

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February 27, 2014 · 12:22 pm

Rhizing Bines

Dogfish Head is one of the best breweries on the East Coast. Sierra Nevada is one of the best breweries on the West Coast. Somehow the two breweries got together and gave birth to Rhizing Bines, a delicious and smooth IPA. It pours a golden copper with a nice foamy head. It has a great aroma. I smell citrus hops, caramel, florals, and sweetness. It tastes hoppy at first but quickly becomes smooth, creamy, and malty. It’s very well balanced. It’s hoppy and malty, it’s sweet and bitter. It’s a complex beer, but it passes the test. It has an 8% ABV and the alcohol will creep up on you. It’s not the best beer I’ve had, but it’s probably in my top twenty-five.

Critically Rated at 15/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

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February 27, 2014 · 12:14 am

R.I.P. Bushman

San Francisco has lost an icon and a legend. Gregory Jacobs, A.K.A. Bushman passed away recently and Fisherman’s Wharf will never be the same again. Jacobs made his living by pretending to be a bush and scaring the crap out of oblivious tourists when they walked by him. He would typically post up near a garbage can and hide behind a few branches. Whenever somebody would get too close, he would pop out and give them a little scare. Some people got mad, but most people would laugh, plop down some money, and then hang around for a minute and watch him scare somebody else. He did that for over thirty years. He’s scared millions of people and has become a celebrity in the process. And now he’s gone and the city feels a more little empty. It’s like New York City losing the Naked Cowboy. Things are never going to be the same again.

Gregory Jacobs was one of two Bushmen. There is also another bushguy named David Johnson, and Johnson prefers to be called the World Famous Bushman. There is some dispute as to which one is the original, but they were bushpartners at one point and gradually became bushenemies. Who knew the world of street performers and busking could be so interesting? It’s kind of cool that a guy who pretended to be a bush could gain the attention and affection of millions of people from around the world. Rest in Peace Bushman. You will be missed.

Critically Rated at 12/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

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February 26, 2014 · 12:44 pm

Sriracha

Sriracha is one of the best hot sauces/condiments known to mankind. It goes great with everything, on anything, and with all types of cuisine. It’s spicy but not overly spicy compared to Tabasco or Tapatío. Sriracha is extremely popular right now. Most people know what it is, but most people don’t know how to pronounce it correctly. Seriously. There are YouTube videos instructing you how to say it properly. But everybody says it wrong and everybody says it wrong the same way, so you’ll be considered wrong if you pronounce it the right way. The most popular and recognized brand of Sriracha is made by Huy Fong Foods, Inc. It has a drawing of a rooster on the bottle, so a lot of people call it rooster sauce or cock sauce. Haha, cock sauce. If you haven’t experienced Sriracha yet, you are missing out on one of the best things in life. Sriracha should be a top priority on your bucket list.

Critically Rated at 16/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

 

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February 26, 2014 · 12:40 pm

Dubbel Fisted (beer)

Vista, California’s Iron Fist Brewing Company presents Dubbel Fisted, a Belgian Style Dubbel. This is a pretty hefty craft beer, rich in flavor and aroma, and with a relatively high 8.10% alcohol content. It pours a cloudy, dark amber with a thin tan head. It smells of plums, chocolate, caramel, nuts, and malt, maybe a little spice as well. It tastes great, malty and rich with brown sugar. I also get hints of plum, caramel, chocolate, molasses, and spice. It’s the first beer I’ve tried from Iron Fist, and it made a great first impression. I can’t wait to try their other offerings. It’s always awesome discovering a new brewery making amazing libations. Try Dubbel Fisted if you get the chance.
Critically Rated at 14/17
Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

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February 25, 2014 · 10:01 am

The Walking Dead Season 1

The Walking Dead is an AMC television series about a group of survivors trying to make their way through the zombie apocalypse. It’s based on a comic written by Robert Kirkland. It was brought to the small screen by Frank Darabont, the same guy who brought Stephen King’s The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile to the big screen, so you know he can make a successful adaptation. Darabont was the showrunner for the first season before he was replaced, but you can’t deny the impact he had in creating a cultural phenomenon. This is a show about zombies, but they never call them zombies. They refer to them as “walkers” primarily, but they have a few different names for them. It’s also a character study. How do you keep your humanity and sanity when the undead can kill you at any moment? What happens to society when everything has fallen apart?
The first season is only six episodes, but it sets up characters and story lines that are still around. The show focuses on Sheriff’s Deputy Frank Grimes (played by Andrew Lincoln) waking up from a coma to find that the world has changed. The world has been taken over by the undead and Frank must venture out in search of his wife and son. He meets a few other survivors and has to learn the ways of the new world or die in the process.
The show shares many similarities with the comics (as you would expect), but it’s entirely different in other ways. There are characters and situations in the show that aren’t in the comics, and sometimes a situation will involve different characters. The end result is that a comic reader has a better sense of what might happen or should happen, but they can’t be sure because anything could change at anytime.
The first season is kind of slow, but that’s to be expected because it’s setting up everything and you can’t rush good exposition. You get to meet some of your favorite characters like Glenn (played by Steven Yeun) and Daryl (played by Norman Reedus), as well as characters you despise like Lori (played by Sarah Wayne Callies). Lori might be the most hated character in all of television. She fucking sucks. She’s useless and annoying and bitchy and I hate her so much. You should hate her too.
You either love The Walking Dead or you hate it. There is no in between. But I don’t trust you if you don’t like it. There’s something suspicious about you. How can you hate something so great? It’s not a perfect show, but it’s one of the best things on TV right now. It’s a staple of Sunday night television and you’re missing out if you’re not watching it.
Critically Rated at 15/17
Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

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February 25, 2014 · 9:58 am

Ant Invasion

I arrived home from a mini vacation to find a swarm of ants going to town on the garbage can in the kitchen. There were hundreds of ants around the trash. They were on the floor, on the can, and on the wall, everywhere. I had a problem and I had to deal with it immediately. The first thing I did was take out the trash. Whatever they wanted would soon be out of the kitchen and in the curbside can. Then I had to get rid of the remaining ants. I didn’t have any bug spray, but I had a bottle of Simple Green and I figured that could be an effective weapon. And it turns out, it was beyond effective. A single spritz of Simple Green killed dozens of ants instantly. Whatever chemical combination they use in that magical elixir stopped the ants in their tracks and killed them dead. A couple of blasts was all it took to stop the invasion, and then it took a few paper towels to wipe up all the ant corpses. The Simple Green had the added bonus of cleaning and disinfecting the crime scene as well. The kitchen was actually cleaner after the massacre. I’m a hero to humanity and a murder to the ants. I stopped the ant invasion.
Critically Rated at 12/17
Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

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February 24, 2014 · 12:07 pm

Filtering a Beer

I had to filter a beer the other night. By filtering a beer, I mean that the bottleneck broke when I was trying to open it and pieces of glass fell inside the bottle. I’ve never had that happen before. I drink beer all the time. I’m pretty good at opening bottles. At least I thought I was. Anyway, I tried to open a beer, failed, and small shards of glass got into the beer. It was a Hop Stoopid from Lagunitas, so I didn’t want to waste it. This was a real beer, not a fucking Budweiser. I made a makeshift filter out of paper towels. I would have used a coffee filter, but I don’t have any in the house right now. I placed a paper towel over a big beer mug and slowly poured the beer into the paper towel. It formed a shallow puddle that slowly dripped and drained its way through the paper towel into the mug. I replaced the paper towel every few minutes. Yes, this took more than a few minutes. It probably took about ten to fifteen minutes and four paper towels to filter the 22 ounces of liquid gold. It took a while but it worked and I didn’t have to worry about swallowing glass and shredding my stomach lining. I don’t mind wasting time, but I’ll never waste beer.

Critically Rated at 9/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

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February 24, 2014 · 11:59 am

Vimto (soda)

I made another trip to the corner store with obscure food items and found another British soda that I’ve never heard of. This one is called Vimto. It’s a Fizzy mixed fruit juice drink made with the delicious secret Vimto flavour. To get into specifics, the fruit juices include grape, blackcurrant, and raspberry and the Vimto flavouring includes natural extracts of fruits, herbs, barley malt, and spices. That seems like an interesting medley for a carbonated soft drink. It has a purple colour and a good amount of fizzy bubbles, and it looks like a fun soda. It tastes like a fun soda too. It’s crisp, fruity, light, and refreshing. I think it’s my favourite of the three British sodas I’ve tried in the past week or so. I might even cross the pond to get it again.

Critically Rated at 15/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

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February 23, 2014 · 2:53 pm

Clopen

Ahhhh, the clopen. That’s the term for when you have a closing shift followed by an opening shift the next day. You get to be the last one to leave the building and you get to be the first one there the next morning. It ought to be illegal, but unfortunately it’s not. It’s how you know your managers love you. Clopens shouldn’t be a common occurrence, but they happen more than you’d like them to. I secretly think about sleeping in a storage closet each time I am scheduled to clopen. It makes more sense than trekking all the way home and sleeping uncomfortably for a few hours before coming right back to work. I wonder if I could get away with keeping a tent in the break room. Probably not but it’s worth a shot. If you’re scheduled to work a clopen, you are required to bitch about it nonstop for the duration of those two shifts. It’s not a true clopen if you’re not miserable about it.
Critically Rated at 6/17
Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

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February 23, 2014 · 2:50 pm

Steve Bartman

Steve Bartman is perhaps the most well known Chicago Cubs fan in history, and for all the wrong reasons. He’s the guy who interfered with a foul ball during the 8th inning of Game 6 of the 2003 NLCS, potentially costing the Chicago Cubs their first chance to get to the World Series in a million years. Even non-baseball fans remember this play. The Cubs were up 3-0 in the 8th and 5 outs away from the World Series when Marlin’s batter Luis Castillo hit a ball down the 3rd baseline and several fans made an attempt to catch it. Steve Bartman was one of those fans, and he was the unfortunate one who managed to deflect it. Cubs outfield Moises Alou wasn’t able to catch the ball and he blamed poor Steve. And then the other Cubs players blamed poor Steve. And then the Cubs announcers and all the Cubs fans in the stands started to blame poor Steve. And then all the other Cubs fans started to blame poor Steve. And poor Steve received death threats and had to be placed under police protection, and he is still hated today. All because of something that was purely instinctual. There were half a dozen other fans who could have been the one to touch the ball. We could all be hating Susie Nonfan just as easily. It just wasn’t Steve Bartman’s day. Steve, if you’re reading this, I feel sorry for you and I’d love to buy you a beer sometime. You’re lucky I’m a Giants fan.
Critically Rated at 9/17
Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

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February 22, 2014 · 2:23 am

White Noise (app)

I don’t like paying for apps. 99% of the apps I download are free. If I paid for an app, it better be worth it. I think that the iTunes White Noise app is worth the $1.99 fee. They have a free version, but the full version is where it’s at. White Noise is a sound soother app. It plays relaxing noises to drown out annoying noises when you’re trying to sleep. They have a bunch of different sounds like White Noise, Beach Waves Crashing, Water Sprinkler, Light Rain with Birds, Rain on Car Roof, Tibetan Singing Bowl, Clothes Dryer, Crowded Room, Boat Swaying in Water, City Streets, and Amazon Jungle (my personal favorite). It has a timer function so the sound will stop after you fall asleep. There’s also an alarm clock function as well as a display clock with different color settings. Sound soothers help you fall asleep and sleeping is good. I’ve noticed that when I’m sleeping in the city I tend to play nature sounds, and when I go to my parent’s house in the suburbs I tend to play city sounds. Check out the White Noise app from TMSOFT the next time you’re having trouble sleeping. You can thank me in the morning.

Critically Rated at 15/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

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February 22, 2014 · 1:21 am

Leninade (soda)

Leninade is a surprisingly satisfying simple Soviet style soda but it’s made by California’s Real Sodas in Real Bottles, Ltd. It’s a lemonade-style soda, but it’s more sweet than it is sour. The novelty factor of the soda makes Leninade better than it really is. They really went all out with the fake Russian propaganda. The soda is even bright red. The bottle invites you to Join The Party! and to Get Hammered & Sickled! and to Drink Comrade! Drink! It’s This Or The Gulag! It’s really not A Taste Worth Standing In Line For! but it’s worth buying and trying just so you can send a picture of it to your Russian friends on VK. VK is like the Russian version of Facebook. The Cold War is over. Celebrate with a cold bottle of Leninade.

Critically Rated at 11/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

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February 21, 2014 · 1:08 pm

High Five

A high five is a gesture of acknowledgment and celebration. You need a minimum of two people and something to celebrate. Let’s pretend your stupid brother finally got his driver’s license after the fourth attempt. You would say something like “High five” or “Gimme five” and then the two of you slap your palms together. Remember that it’s a celebratory gesture. It has to be earned. You can’t go around high fiving everybody all the time. I had a coworker who would high five everyone and everybody for no reason. It was awkward. He was awkward. He got fired and moved back to his hometown. Nobody misses him. And it’s all because he didn’t know the proper high five etiquette. High fives are easy. You just have to know when to apply them. Don’t be a constant high-fiver, don’t be that guy.

Critically Rated at 14/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

 

 

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February 21, 2014 · 1:03 pm

Ben Shaws Dandelion & Burdock (soda)

I went to the corner store that carries obscure food items and a purple can caught my eye. It was a can of Ben Shaws Dandelion & Burdock soda. Ben Shaws is a British soda brand and Dandelion & Burdock is one of their flavors. Dandelion & Burdock has been popular in the British Isles since the Middle Ages. It was originally a type of mead, but it’s evolved into a non-alcoholic soft drink that British people like to drink at the beach. Ben Shaws Dandelion & Burdock is a very interesting soda. It’s a slightly lighter shade of brown than a typical cola, it’s carbonated and fizzy, and it has a sweet floral aroma. The taste is more subtle and muted than I thought it would be, but I didn’t really know what to expect. I can’t quite put my finger on what it tastes like. It reminds me of those fancy violet candies that your grandma would give you but you didn’t like with a little bit of a diet root beer aftertaste. It’s pretty meh. I was excited to try a flavor of soda that I’ve never heard of before, but the excitement went quickly and now I’m bored with it my half-empty can.

Critically Rated at 10/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

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February 20, 2014 · 1:26 pm

El Sabroso Pork Cracklins

I’ve never had pork rinds and I wanted to try pork rinds. So I bought El Sabroso brand Pork Cracklins. It’s Fried Out Pork Fat With Attached Skin, Salsa Packet Included. Sounds appetizing, doesn’t it. When you open the bag and take a whiff you can smell salt and meat. Each pork cracklin is salty, crunchy, and crispy. I tried a few without the salsa first and they were quite delightful. The taste and texture reminds me of a corn nut combined with popcorn and the blackest part of burnt bacon. It took me about five minutes to think of a good enough analogy to describe the flavor, so you better appreciate that. I wasn’t sure how to use the salsa. Should I pour it in the bag with the pork cracklins or should I use a little ramekin or dipping bowl? I ended up dumping some cracklins on a plate and pouring the salsa over some and leaving a pool for dipping. The salsa doesn’t make them better per se, but it does soften them up a little and makes them more spicy. They are good with or without the salsa, and the salsa seems to be kind of messy and unnecessary. It doesn’t seem like a convenient snack to eat on the go. They are good though. I know that I like pork rinds now. You should try them if you are unsure of your pork rind status. Just remember that they aren’t kosher.

Critically Rated at 13/17

Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young

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