Day 1: Wishcraft (2002)

Can a once-prolific blogger who hasn't written 31 posts all year find it in his soul to review 31 previously unseen horror films in 31 days of October? Let's find out...

______________________________________________________________

I picked this one out totally at random, having never heard of it before. It was sitting there at the end of the horror/sci-fi section on HBO Go, just waiting to suck. Like the Family Circus, I'm uncontrollable drawn to it. 

So this one starts out with a semi-unpopular high school dork tutoring the school's alpha cheerleader. You can immediately tell he's an unpopular dork because he drives a scooter and, well...he's a tutor. And he's not a football player or a cheerleader. Duh. 

Quick aside: The kid's mother was played by Allyce Beasley, and seeing her made me immediately think of this scene from Cheers when she played Coach's daughter. One of the most truly touching scenes ever filmed for a television series. And my Grinch's small heart grew three sizes that day. Onward...

Honestly, our genteel dork's high school days don't seem that bad. But I'm guessing that his anonymous mouser days are just about over as he receives a mysterious package in the mail. A wrapped box containing a totem and a note stating that said totem will grant him three wishes. And that he should be careful what he wishes for. Yeah, I'm ending that last sentence with a preposition because that's what the note said. Deal. 

The totem looks like some kind of raw meat wrapped in leather or skin. It's kinda gross, so he promptly throws it out. Then he promptly fishes it out at the urging of his un-cool friend and immediately throws caution to the wind by making a wish. That the popular cheerleader he was tutoring would go with him to the Spring Dance. And that wish becomes reality in the very next scene when she asks him out. Man...this flick is not wasting any time!

So the dork and his un-cool friend realize the totem works and they take it to the local antiques guy who tells them that it's a bull's dick. A BULL'S DICK! Man, if I had known that I could make three wishes every time I held a bull's dick in my hands...

Ahem, wishes come true and popular kids start dying. That's the way we all knew it was gonna go, right? Cheerleader goes with dork to a dance, and a corpse in a long leather jacket stabs a Jimbo* with a samurai sword. Which is weird, because katana's are more for slicing than stabbing. It's the details, people. I'll not go into the blood and guts of the rest of the killings. Because that would be bad form. Not like anyone reading this is ever going to see this crap. But bad form is bad form, so we move on.

*jim·bo - a stout, immature high-school football player who seems more fat and out-of-shape than athletic yet can still attract the insanely hot, cool cheerleader-type. Jimbos usually die quickly in horror films in either comic or disgusting ways. Jimbos are stupid. Jimbos usually come from Kenosha, Wisconsin.

And none of that matters anyway. Because the town's lead detective is played by Meat Loaf! And his name is Sparky! Detective Sparky Shaw! Brilliant! In a perfect world, every town would have a cop named Sparky. And every Sparky would look like Meat Loaf.

Back to the film, our hero realizes that using two wishes to get the hottest girl in school is vaguely rape-y. Well, nothing too vague about it really. He tells her what he did, and she reacts appropriately. Like she was raped. Meanwhile, our corpse anti-hero kills several more football players. Man, that team is gonna be awful this year!

The story takes an absurd, yet nearly original turn at that point. Has the dork/rapist's wishes led to the deaths of all those popular kids? Did he ever use that third wish? Did the football team manage to win even one game all year? These are all good questions. You'll have to endure Wishcraft to find out. Mwah-ha-ha-ha!!!

Aw, fuck it. This guy killed everyone. Yeah, I told you it was absurd.

Verdant Dude Rating: 2 out of 5 pumpkins

31 in 31: One more day

OK, are you all ready for 31 crappy horror film reviews in 31 days? I know I'm not.

Actually, I've already reviewed a handful and have those posts scheduled already. Had to do it because I'm heading down South for vacation in a couple of weeks and I probably won't be watching much horror that week. I'll be creating my own horror. Earl vs. his liver in a fight to the finish! Ahem...

Anyway, come back tomorrow and every day in October and expect to be underwhelmed.

Don't call it comeback

I've been inspired by Stacie Ponder's (Final Girl) Ali-like return to the ring to start blogging on the reg once again. And I'm going to fall back on that old chestnut to get me going. Movie reviews.

So, for the month of October, I'll be reviewing 31...COUNT THEM...31 horror films that I have never seen before. This is an under-taking from the gods themselves. The elder gods. The ones who require blood sacrifices and virgins and lotions...or something.

So grab your socks and your cocker spaniels, and get prepared for a full month of insane mediocrity.

I'm back, baby. And this time it's gonna hurt.

Oh...do me a favor. Leave me some suggestions in the comments section if you have 'em. Thanks a bunch, creepos.

Moon and whoo!

OK, so right away I'm gonna let you know that I have no way of documenting this moment besides my somewhat addled memory. I had my phone with me, but it's got a shitty camera. And I don't think I could have captured the awesome that kinda happened even with a good camera.

Lemme 'splain...

Last Friday, while in the glorious throes of a mild bourbon buzz, I happened to notice the not-quite-full moon shining into our living room. What is that called? Gibbous moon? Gibbon moon? Monkey-Ass moon? Something like that. Anywho, we live on the east side of a harbor that makes a setting moon or a setting sun a truly glorious site. Even if the setting planetary body gets obscured by treeline on the other side of the water. Whatevs...it's still glorious.

I see that the Monkey-Ass moon is just about to set behind the treeline, so I grab a fresh whiskey and I head outside to solemnly observe the event. The moon was cooking that night. You know when a film shows a sun or moon set in fast motion? That's how it looked. I was barely out there for five minutes and I could actually see the moon racing to the treeline in some weird surreal way.

Then, just as the moon was going behind the treeline, I heard a gigantic "WHOO!" coming from the middle of the harbor. Maybe just about 50 yards away from where I was sitting. Turns out that there were a couple of guys out there in a dinghy doing some night-fishing. And, apparently, from the sound of the struggle and the joy of the men they caught themselves a big ole bluefish or something.

It was an odd moment. No one is ever out on an a boat in our harbor. We have a jetty close by and a bridge/causeway running over a dam into a salt-water pond. That's where all the fishermen usually hang out. But that night, there was not only one but three small rowboats out on the harbor. All yacking it up, drinking (I hope) and catching fish. At something like 1 or 2AM.

Every year, I tell myself at the beginning of the Summer that I'm going to spend a bunch of time fishing basically out of my back yard. We have availability to a dock, and our neighbor has 5-6 small watercrafts we can use. It still hasn't happened.

What the hell is wrong with me?

Don't answer that.

Slow and Low

On a recent jaunt, yes jaunt, to a local liquor store I happened upon this beauty:

That's Slow and Low from Hochstadter's Distillery out of Philadelphia, PA. It's the first "bottled cocktail" I've ever purchased, I believe. It's their version of an Old Fashioned. Straight Rye whiskey mixed with orange peel, honey, something called horehound and rock candy. The result is a sweet, extremely drinkable cocktail that you simply pour over ice. That's it. Open bottle, pour over ice and enjoy a nice cocktail. Much easier than, um, fashioning an Old Fashioned at home. See what I did there?

The roots in this product come ye olden days when barkeeps, and later pharmacists, would pour straight Rye over rock candy for a more palatable quaff. The pharmacists because of the supposedly medicinal properties of whiskey. Sure. I know it often heals what's ailing me. Maybe I'm just a throwback. Anyway, that was a Rock & Rye. And Hochstadter's apparently bottled that for the past century or so. Now they've moved into the Old Fashioned game. And it plays well.

So if you happen to run across it in your travels, pick up a bottle and enjoy a simple, tasty cocktail at home that requires little more than pouring it.

Happy Weekend!

Upcoming posts

Just wanted to write this down because:

A) It's fucking late, and
B) my short-term memory really sucks.

So these are a few blog posts that I'm going to be writing in the next few days/weeks/months. However long it takes. And don't hold me to fucking anything. I'm whimsical.

• A review of a new bottled cocktail (hmmm?) called Slow and Low from Hochstadter's Distillery in PA. I'm pretty sure I didn't spell that correctly. See the post here.
• I've seen two Nicolas Cage films in the past two evenings. Both were ridiculous, both were set in New Orleans, both deserve a deft Earl-touch review.
• I got semi-pissed at a work colleague the other day when he called me insisting that I didn't inform him of a certain business transaction a few months ago. He was kinda pissed and really adamant about it.   Then I forwarded him the three emails that I had written to him about it all from back then. So...
• Didn't this summer go by way too quickly?
• I've kinda given up on the NY Yankees this year, but that doesn't mean I'm giving up on baseball. Lemme 'splain...
• A review of a sci-fi novel dealing with a cyber-attack on the United States, and why I'm now suddenly afraid of everything.  
• I'm making spicy Asian grilled flank steak with cold sesame noodles for dinner on Thursday. I believe this a cause for a food porn post.
• My seven-year anniversary with Gia is coming up rapidly. Seems like a good time to reflect on the past seven years and plan for the next seventy.
• I haven't seen one film in the theaters this summer yet. I blame my friends. Yes...you.
• That Hyperloop thingamajig. I felt like Veruca Salt when I saw the plans for that the other day. "But Daddy, I want a Hyperloop NOW!!!"

Anyway...you'll be seeing something on all these shortly. Or maybe not. I'm whimsical. 

Happy Weekend!

"We get older every day! And so....we drink"

A classic from Larry Miller. The Five Levels of Drinking.

Cheers!

RIP Karen Black

In memory of the recently departed Karen Black, here's a re-post from all the way back in 2006 (wow!). R.I.P. Ms. Black!

_________________________________________________________

Thrillogy of Terror!
May 14, 2006

Finishing up our short series of conversations on grand moments at rock concerts. We are up to my experiences at a Radiohead concert that opened up with The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black.

Great name for a band, eh? For those that don't recall, Karen Black is an actress who played some terrific B movie roles in the 70's. Well, she still does some pretty awful B (and C) films to this day. But most folks remember her from the wonderful Burnt Offerings or the made-for-TV tour-de-force (Wow...lots of dashes there) Trilogy of Terror.

In Trilogy of Terror, she played three, well four, roles in three separate little Horror films. The most well known is the tale of the woman who brought home a Zuni Fetish warrior doll that comes to life and viciously attacks her. It's campy and awesome!

Just like The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black. Campy and awesome. I had never even heard of them before the concert, so we made our way upstairs to sit down in the balcony for their act. I was with my brother and two of my friends.

So the lights dim and the band comes out. The women on stage (not sure how many) are dressed all in blue with big flower petals around their heads to give the impression that they are playful, colorful flowers dancing around. Weird, but I've seen weird before so I wasn't too interested.

We start chatting about the band, when I take another look at the ladies. I'm now concentrating on exactly what they are wearing when I realize something. They're nekkid!

Well, they are wearing panties and those ridiculous flower head-dress thingies, but mostly they are just painted blue. Now, let me set one thing straight. Most of them are not attractive women. Not at all. Not necessarily un-attractive, just normal women in an abnormal setting.

But semi-naked women at a rock show is something I really don't pass on. So, I get up to go get a closer look. This would involve a trip downstairs and an ample amount of wading through the humanity that was on the floor. Whatever. Naked women, people!

That's when this conversation takes place:

Me: "Um, does anyone, um, like want a beer or something from downstairs?"

My brother: "Sure, but they sell booze up here I think."

Me: "Yeah, I know, but, um, I just wanna stretch my legs a bit, you know...walk around."

Friend1: "We just came up here to sit down because you said you were tired. Didn't we?"

Me: "Yeah...um, right. I dunno...just getting a little antsy, so I figured I would explore. OK? Anyone want a beer?"

My brother: "What's going on?"

Friend2: "I think he just figured out that the women on stage are kinda naked, and he wants to go check it out."

Friend1 and my brother at the same time: "They're naked??!!"

They practically fall over themselves trying to get out of the seats as they rush down to the floor ahead of me. We leave Friend2 groaning to himself in his seat about our immaturity. And he is, by far, the youngest of us all.

We were just younger in our heads and in our pants. The way it should be.

Good show, though. I think there were songs and stuff. But there was also beer and blue boobies. Good show, indeed!

Pissed at the Wrong Dude

This has been a wonderful baseball season. My Yankees have been having a rough time of it, with a historic run of injuries. But the Pirates are a great story. So are the Indians, Red Sox, Braves, Miguel Cabrera, Mike Trout (be prepared for MVP-geddon Part II), Yasiel Puig, Yu Darvish, Jose Fernandez, Chris Davis and a whole host of other great storylines. Even the down-year Yankees have a feel-great story in Mariano Rivera's retirement tour. At 43, he's just as dominant and classy as he's ever been. It's gonna suck not having him around baseball next year.

But the "pink elephant"* in the room is clearly the historic suspensions that were handed down yesterday from MLB coming from their investigation of Miami-based BioGenesis. Well, the suspensions started with Ryan Braun a few weeks ago. And, unfortunately, they will continue because of all the players involved in the case only one will be testing his sentence with an appeal.

Alex Rodriguez.

The twelve others players issued suspensions yesterday all declined to appeal the sentence of 50 games. Which will take most of those players through the end of the year. A couple of them will have a chance to play in the playoffs, if their teams make it. But it will be up to the team to decide if they will be included on post-season rosters.

But A-Rod, due to an alleged overwhelming amount of evidence showing multiple years of use, multiple instances of lies, multiple attempts at obstructing MLB's investigation and his reputation as being an underground PED pimp for some of the other players in the case, is getting 211 games.  211. That's an odd number. It so happens that it adds up to the remaining games this year starting Thursday and all of next year. So it's basically an arbitrary sentence. Had the investigation concluded last week, it would be 217 games. Or if it lasted another week it would be 205 games. Whatever. Basically the suspension was this remainder of this year and all of next year because that's how long MLB (and maybe the Yankees) want him out of baseball. Fine. 

A-Rod is going to fight, fight, fight the damaged fight, however. He is not accepting the suspension and his appeal could run 20-25 days. Or it could last until November or December as Michael Wiener of the MLB Player's Association has been quoted as saying. Imaging that. He could finish out the year while appealing the decision. Even worse, imagine if he catches fire and pushes the Yankees all the way to the World Series? And THEN he starts his suspension? Ugh...

In the wake of all this information, many fans and members of the media are pissed at who else? Alex Rodriguez. He's a monster. He's tarnishing the game. He should just go away. Even diehard Yankees fans are done with this guy. I'm sure he is going to be welcomed back to Yankee Stadium on Friday night with a resounding Bronx cheer.

But you know what, Yankees fans? You're pissed at the wrong dude.

Imagine this scenario, if you will. It's late 2007.  The biggest superstar in the game is coming off an MVP year. He is in the middle of the biggest contract ever given to a baseball player, but he has an option to opt out. He decides to do so in a most public and crass manner during the World Series. His agent, Scott Boras, said he made the decision because he was unsure of the future composition of the team. Fine.

That didn't stop him from re-signing with the Yankees the following month for an even bigger contract than the one he just opted out of. Ten years and $275 million with a buttload of incentives for passing each career home run milestone. Doesn't matter that the Yankees were probably only bidding against themselves for A-Rod's future services. No other team was going to step up and pay that kind of money. I doubt any other team would have gone over $200 million, but that's just me...talking out of my ass. I thought it was a terrible decision at the time, and naturally I still do. But this is the kind of thing the Yankees do. Fine.

The idea was that A-Rod was the white knight that was going to break every record in the book and he was going to do it cleanly. No asterisks next to his name. He was going to take the spotlight away from Barry Bonds and all the rest of the steroid cheats. The baseball world was his oyster, and the Yankees were going to bask in his glory. Celebrating him at every turn. And as his legend was supposed to grow, the Yankees bank accounts were going to grow in turn. Fine.

Except...

It came out in 2009 that he had failed a supposedly anonymous piss test in 2004 when MLB was considering implementing regular testing. He had to admit to the world that he had indeed used illegal substances. But it was in the years prior to his time with the Yankees. And he apologized profusely saying that he has been clean since. Fine.

Except..

After several years of declining production, post-season failures and recurrent injuries, he is back in the illegal substance game. And chefboyardee did he hit it out the park this time. As if his reputation wasn't tarnished already, he is now virtually assured to go down as the greatest pariah the game has ever seen. Barry Bonds is off in a room someplace smiling. Pete Rose is doing a jig. Even Ty Cobb thinks he's an asshole.

And Yankees fans are pissed at him.

Fuck that! They should be pissed AT THE YANKEES! I know I am.

They GAVE him this contract after the 2007 season. Think about that. Supposedly the beginning of the post-Steroid era. Barry Bonds had just played his last game, by no choice of his own. He was unofficially black-balled out of the game even though he was still ridiculously productive. Roger Clemens had also just thrown his last pitch. For the Yankees, of fucking course. His retirement was more voluntary. The biggest cheats in the game were gone. Standardized testing was in place. Commissioner Bud was ruling over the cleanest league in the land. And one of the big reasons that the Yankees granted A-Rod this contract was this new era and the promise of breaking every record in the books...the clean way.

So why didn't they include anything in his contract that would punish him for using PEDs?

I mean, here we are in this supposed new era. A-Rod is the guy that is going to wipe the record books clean. They give him EVERYTHING he wanted in this new contract despite the widely-held belief that no other team was even in the running, and they don't even consider some kind of clause that would punish him if he wasn't everything that he claimed to be. Ya know, just in case. And if he and his people balked at that...well then maybe that would have been a red flag. And maybe if there was some kind of punishment for PED use in there, then maybe he wouldn't be in this position today. I doubt it, because he seems like the very definition of a sociopath right now. I doubt it would have deterred him, but maybe.

Hey listen...it's a possibility that they did want to include something like that. But if they did bring up the possibility that the white knight was maybe a few shades darker, and they agreed to do nothing about it? Then shame on the Yankees. If they didn't even consider it a possibility after everything that baseball had gone through in the previous decade? Then shame on the Yankees.

Bottom line: Shame on the Yankees. If we should be pissed at anyone right now, it should be them. Because that abhorrent contract is just as disgusting to me as the player that pissed it all away. Well...not literally pissed it away. But you know what I mean.

*This incorrect idiom is courtesy of A-Rod's post-game interview last weekend in Trenton. He obviously meant "elephant in the room" or "eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the room" when referring to the topic of PEDs and BioGenesis. But it was pretty late on a Friday night, so maybe pink elephant was apropos. Hmm...now I want a Delirium Tremens. Moving on...

Today was a good day

Trust me.

The best day.

Past lives

I ran into a guy that I used to know yesterday.  I won't go so far as to actually say that we were friends, although for a time we probably were. But it was more of a "drinking buddy" sort of relationship. We lived/worked in the same town and hit the same joints. It wasn't a great time in either of our lives, so we definitely spent way too much time and money in bars.

We would occasionally get together for golf or something, but he wasn't the kind of friend that I would invite into my home or set my sister up with. Just a guy that I knew who was sometimes fun to be around. Sometimes he wasn't fun to be around. Like when he got too drunk and developed the superpower to start bar brawls. That's not my gig.

One day he ran afoul of some legal trouble and he needed some money. Despite my better judgment, I lent him some even though I had real doubt about his ability to pay me back. Basically, to borrow from a scene in A Bronx Tale, I calculated the amount of money I could afford to part with for deducting someone from my life who I really didn't need or want. It worked too. Over the next year or so, I would run into him and he would either slip me some cash or sheepishly make an excuse to get going. Sometimes I would see him buying drinks for folks at bars and I would just turn a cold shoulder.

Although he paid me back a large portion of what he borrowed, he never settled the full tab. He moved a few towns away and I heard some stuff about him here and there. I even ran into him once or twice in the ensuing years. Mostly just a "howyadoin" moment. Or I would see him first and go the other way. Maybe he saw me too and did the same thing. I have no idea. I know that it was or it seemed uncomfortable for both of us.

But yesterday, there was no avoiding it. We were on top of each other before we realized it and there was no way around it. And you know what? After a brief hesitation, I had no bad feelings about him at all. He seemed to be doing well and I'm happy for him. We caught up for maybe two minutes, then I excused myself and went on my way. I don't know if he remembers that he never quite paid me back fully, or if he even cares. All I know is that I didn't care anymore.

I told him to "have a good one" before we parted ways. Mostly, between friends, that means have a good day. Maybe until the next time you see them. But I meant it as have a good life, because I hope he does.

He's gone from a guy that I actively avoided to just a guy that I used to know. I'd like to think that's a healthier way of dealing with...life.

Dear Diary

Welcome to our lives.



From Ze Frank...wow, I know he's still around, but I haven't seen anything from him in a long time. 

Coasting...

Got an awesome surprise in the mail today from an old blog buddy. Not that he's old, per se. Certainly not when compared to yours truly. Or at least as old as I feel some days. Anywho. He blogged under the screen name Badgerdaddy (although, I'm pretty sure it was a lower-case b), and I'd like to say I have no idea how we found each other in the great big blogosphere. But I actually know. I used to post a lot of comments on the boards over on IMDB. That was my social network in the mid-aughts. And, at the time, I was only guest-blogging over on Slyde's blog. So I would use his web address as my tagline or something. I don't recall. But from there, he started commenting over at Slyde's and then my blog when I started it up.

For a while there, that was pretty much my blog community. Me, Slyde, B(b)adgerdaddy, Kat and Liz. Slyde, B(b)adgerdaddy and myself even started our own collaborative blog, Moviegrenade. The idea was that we would watch bad movies and review them for your displeasure. That was a lot of fun. I sometimes go back to that blog just to read the old posts. Some of my favorite things I've ever done blogging-wise is on that site. But it slowly settled on the un-used blog shelf of my library. Sad.

All of us kinda went our individual ways. Slyde is still blogging. So am I, even if it's not as often. I still get the occasional  post from Liz in my reader, but B(b)adgerdaddy and Kat have stopped blogging. As far as I can tell. But they do comment from time to time.

And we've kept in touch via email and Twitter. Follow him here, if you like. Last week I got an email from him wanting to confirm my address, and, gasp, to ask for my real name because he had something to send me in the mail. After verifying that it was indeed him and not a spam request, I happily replied.

And today, I received a glorious set of Green Man coasters that he had picked up with me in mind a while back. Check it:

That's a shitty image from my crappy cell phone taken with my shaky hands, but you get the idea. This great vibrant, green color with in incredibly hand-drawn Green Man image in glass. If you want a better look at the Green Man, check out the artist's blog here. Her name is Jane Murphy, and she works in glass over in Shropshire in the UK. Brilliant stuff.

It was kind of a crappy day, to be honest. This kind gift made most of that crappiness go away. At least for a little while. I'm gonna put these bad boys to good use. Starting immediately.

Cheers, B(b)adgerdady!

Ramblings

Hey, kids? How's life?

So I made it. One whole month without blogging. It was rough, at times. I'd get that late night itch to tell y'all about some movie I just watched or some meal that I had just prepared. But I stuck to my guns and kept my vow of not blogging for an entire month. Phew! I did it!

Ah, I'm just fucking with ya. There was no vow or even a tiny wish to cut back on posting here. Just fucking happened. As it does from time to time for all of us. No excuses, no reasons. It just happens sometimes.  So I thought I'd just open up a post window and start rambling. Just in case any of you missed me. Yeah, right.

__________________________________________

I think I'd like an even more anonymous platform than this blog or my Twitter account to spew some hatred out at the void. Nothing specific. I just find that there are times when I want to shout out my demons to the world, only to be held back by the judgment of my better angels. A totally anonymous place to do that would be like a tree falling in the middle of the forest. If no one knew about it, would it really happen? Would it make me feel any better in that moment?

__________________________________________

Saw the third Iron Man flick with my gal-pal Slyde. And I'm already placing it at the very top of my superhero movie pantheon. The origin story in the first film was fantastic, but I was deeply unsatisfied with Jeff Bridges as the Big Bad. The second film had all kinds of problems, and Mickey Rourke should have been much more interesting that he actually was. But this third film, while not perfect, really worked for me. Even Gwyneth Paltrow didn't bother me. Yay for Marvel. Two thumbs up.

__________________________________________

Our diet or "life change of eating habits" has regressed a bit. Put back on a few of those pounds that I lost over the winter. Still eating MUCH healthier than we had been, but we haven't been sticking to the plan as much as we want. I'm finding that my biggest addiction isn't bourbon, baseball or beautiful women. It's snacking on chips. The easiest answer is to not have them in the house. Sure, tell that to my reptile brain when I'm food shopping and those things just jump into my cart. I'm a weak man.

__________________________________________ 

It's a wet and stormy day out there today. Lots of rain and thunder and lightning. Got to tell you...I kinda enjoy a day like this every now and again. Eddie Rabbit understands. I just want to sit outside under our deck and watch the weather porn while sipping on whiskey. So there's that.

__________________________________________  

Speaking of whiskey, I had a little Twitter discussion yesterday or the day before about the current fad of white dog whiskey that I've been enjoying. For those not in the know, that's un-aged whiskey. Usually bourbon. Since it spends no time in the barrel, it retains it's clear white color. It's also, generally, a bit harsher. I've enjoyed Jacob's Ghost from Jim Beam along with several local artisan brands. But what bugs me about this fad is that many distillers are charging more for their un-aged product than for the regular aged stuff. That makes zero logical sense to me. It should be cheaper. MUCH cheaper. Jack Daniels released an un-aged white rye. I didn't even know they made a regular rye. Someone tweeted a pic of it with a price tag exceeding $50. That's ridiculous. It's inflating the cost to cash in on the fad. Knowledgeable whiskey drinkers should know better. Shame on JD.

__________________________________________  

I'm a restless sleeper, usually. Always tossing and turning. But some nights I just crash hard and find myself waking up in exactly the same position that I fell asleep in. I usually feel pretty good about it. But sometimes I fall asleep on my left side, and I sleep with a pillow corner or something pressed against my left eye. That means almost a full morning of blurry vision out of that eye the next day. Does this happen to anyone else, or am I just a sleep retard?

__________________________________________ 

Yeah, no apologies for the retard comment in that last rambling. Sorry if you were offended, just not sorry I made the comment.

__________________________________________  

I don't know if you are a fan of Marc Maron, but he's got a new show on IFC and it's the tits. It's basically an autobiographical show about his life. Derp, that's the definition of an autobiography, right? Sometimes I amaze myself at the things that I type/say. But these are ramblings, and I'm not going back to change anything. Back to Mr. Maron. We've only seen one show, but it was just our speed. Sarcastic, angry guy with a lot of cats. Sound like anyone you know?

OK, get outta here and be useful or something. Cheers!

Nowhere Man

Because it seems like that is exactly where I've been over the past month or so.

Nowhere...man.

No real reason for it. Just haven't had the urge to write my thoughts done in a while. The beginning of the baseball season will also do that to me sometimes. Lots and lots of baseball to watch and read about. Takes a lot of time.

And I'm a little peeved at Google for getting rid of Reader. I went as far as to begin using Bing as my default search tool. But that's about it. I've switched my feeds to The Old Reader. There was a big backlog, and they are a small operation right now, so it took a couple of weeks for my feeds to import. S'okay. I'm digging it now. Even though they don't currently have mobile apps (at least for Android), so it only works on my laptop. On my phone and tablet, I'm using Feedly. I'm not a huge fan, but maybe because it's different than Reader or The Old Reader. Whatever.

I still have a presence on Google. Google Mail, and this here blog on Blogger. Yup...another Google tool that they may eventually just give up on. Like Reader. I know it's a dollars and sense (hehehe) kinda thing, but...whatever.

Then we had a couple deaths in the family. One on my side and one on Gia's. Put a damper on the past few weeks, to say the very least. Gia's been blogging about it in a bit more detail over at her joint. A long time ago, I made the decision not to discuss my family or friends in this space. I'm going to stick with that decision. We are handling it, and we are attempting to move forward. What other choice do we have?

Do you remember Yellow Submarine, the animated film from 1968 featuring the music of The Beatles? Did it scare the living fuck out of you? Yeah...me too. And not just the Blue Meanies, the terrifying villains who were seemingly made of teeth and anger. Nope...Nowhere Man scared the crap outta me too. Well, his name was Jeremy Hillary Boob, but they sang Nowhere Man to him at one point in the film. So he was always Nowhere Man to me.

He was one of the good guys, and he was...horrific.

Whatthefuckisthat?

I would flat out die if that thing came bouncing down the driveway at me. Just die. ::chills::

Holmes

I've recently become semi-obsessed with Sherlock Holmes once again. I say "once again" because there was a time when I would read the complete run of Holmes stories from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle every few years. I was generally into contemporary authors when I was growing up. But we had a bound copy of the 4 novels and 50+ short stories that were written by him about Holmes, and a full set of bound Charles Dickens novels as well. And when I had nothing else to read, I would turn to these to re-read. Over and over again. The Holmes stuff never took that long, so I read those probably a dozen times or so.

But it's honestly been about two decades since I've read them. A lot of that has to do with me reading much, much less than I did when I was a teen or in my early twenties. That's kinda sad. Non-stop availability of just about anything I want to see streaming-wise has also been a big problem.

But problem solved! Well, at least in the Sherlock Holmes situation.

I watched the first season, ahem...series, of the BBC Sherlock production a year or so ago, and I loved it. Starring the immensely talented and oh-so-British-named Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, it's an extremely watchable contemporary update of the Sherlock Holmes stories. But I forgot about it until about a week ago. So I jumped into Series 2...and then watched all 6 episodes over again. Just because I could. I highly recommend this series.

Then I went and found Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows someplace, and I watched that too. And, since it had been awhile since I had seen its' predecessor, Sherlock Holmes, I watched that too. These are the Guy Ritchie films starring Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law. Much, much different than the BBC series, but a lot of fun with Sherlock portrayed as more of an action hero.

And I didn't stop there. I had been hearing some good words about the American TV adaptation, Elementary. Mostly from this guy. Another contemporary update, this one stars Jonny Lee Miller as a former Scotland Yard consultant living and recovering from addiction in Brooklyn. Oh, and they made Watson an American. And female. Portrayed by the always wonderful Lucy Liu. Sure...why not.

So last night I gave it a try. And after one episode, I'm probably hooked again. Except I haven't been able to find anyplace that streams the earlier episodes from this first Season. Our cable company has the last 5 aired episodes (some re-runs) On Demand, but that's it. So that sucks. I thought it was going to be on Hulu Plus, but it's not. Durn.

I am NOT going to be happy if I cannot satisfy my Sherlock fix with Elementary. I may have to go back to, gasp, reading!

Any other Sherlock adaptations out there I should be watching? Zero Effect, starring Bill Pullman and Ben Stiller was loosely based on Sherlock, but it was a lot of fun. So I'm up for anything. Hit me.

Chicken Chili with Black-Eyed Peas

Fergie, amirite?

No, not those Black-Eyed Peas. I'm talking about the food. The legume. The main ingredient in Hoppin' John. Those black-eyed peas. And they've recently become one of our new favorite foods. As in yesterday. Yup...that recent.

I was whipping up a batch of chicken chili (see an old recipe here) and I usually add some small white beans to the mix. But I happened to see a bag of black-eyed peas right next to them at the grocery. So I says to myself "Self, howzabout you give them black-eyed peas a shot instead." Then the old woman next to me in the grocery aisle gave me a snide look and went in search of manager or security guard. So I moved on.

Cooking the black-eyed peas is as simple as...cooking black-eyed peas. You give them an overnight soak in some cold water, or you can do a quick soak per the instructions on the bag. But that's only if you are one of them lazy sumbitches. You aren't one of them lazy sumbitches, are you?  Then rinse the beans and give 'em a once through to make sure there aren't any stones or anthrax capsules hidden amongst them. Then simmer them in some vegetable broth for around 45 minutes or so. Or until just tender, but not mushy. I used 4 cups of broth for a 16 oz bag of beans. This left the cooked beans in a just a bit of delicious beany veggie broth. Is beany a word? Not beanie. That's a silly cap. Hmm...

Anyway, the beans tasted delicious just as is. Didn't need to add any salt or pepper or anything. Just delicious beans in a light broth. This would have been a delicious meal unto itself. Except...

White Chicken Chili

Ingredients

• 1 lb ground chicken
• 1 lb mild chicken sausage - removed from casing
• 1 lb fresh tomatillos - cleaned and roughly cubed
• 1 large green bell pepper - diced
• 1 large white onion - diced
• 4 celery stalks (include the leafy part) - diced
• 3-4 jalepeno peppers - seeded and diced
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp green curry paste
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 1 tsp white pepper
• 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
• 1/4 tsp ground allspice
• 2 cups chicken broth
• juice of 2 limes

 - Brown the ground chicken and the chicken sausage. Separately or together. It doesn't matter to me and it didn't matter to them. Make sure you break up the meat from the chicken sausage with a spatula or wooden spoon. Set aside.

 - In a large stock pot, heat the olive oil and then add the green curry paste and heat for a minute or so to release the delicious flavor and aroma. Add the green pepper, white onion, celery and jalepenos. Simmer on medium-low heat for a few minutes. Until the onions get a bit translucent. Add the salt, white pepper, red pepper flakes and allspice and give it a give mix. Simmer for another minute or so.

 - Add the tomatillos, cilantro, chicken broth, lime juice and the cooked chicken you had previously set aside. Give it all a proper mix and get a nice little boil going. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for around an hour or so. The tomatillos should cook all the way down and leave you with a thick, delicious green sauce.

 - This is when I would normally say that you should now add the cooked beans to the chili and cook for a bit more. But the chili on it's own tasted awesome, and so did the black-eyed peas. Instead, I served the beans as a side dish to the chili. In the same bowl. Kinda like this:

Not sure what that shadow is there at the bottom. My nose?

Made all with fresh ingredients, this mother-fucker tasted like it was handed down from heaven by the baby Hay-zoos himself. I started alternating spoonfuls at first. One spoon of chili. One spoon of beans. But I was soon just scarfing the whole thing down like a prisoner huddled over the bowl, gripping the spoon like a weapon in case anyone rolled up on me. Yeah...it was that good.

Everyone go out shopping for ingredients and make this over the weekend. You kitchen will smell wonderful and you will most certainly thank me once you have begun putting it in your tummy.

That is all.

Nik Turley

Summer of 2011

My Gia is visiting her family in Charleston. The Yankees' Low-A affiliate, the Charleston Riverdogs, have a home series against one of the other teams in the South Atlantic League. Nik Turley pitches the first game she attends and he pitches well. A big lefty with a great pickoff move similar to Andy Pettitte.  The next game, she's sitting next to a young guy keeping score and tracking pitches. Turns out it's Nik Turley. Down at that level of the minors, the starting pitchers all take turns doing this on their off days. Was a real nice guy, and someone that we decided was a new favorite of ours in the Yankees organization. We've been keeping tabs on him ever since.


Today

Nik Turley is now an interesting prospect in the Yankees organization. Not much of a commanding fastball (despite his 6'6" 230lb frame), but great control of all of his pitches. Recently was made a member of the 40-man roster. And at 23 he's making a Spring Training start for the Yankees against the Orioles at 1PM. I'm going to be watching. And not only for young Mr. Turley. Another favorite, Slade Heathcott, will be manning CF for the Bombers. Heathcott has had an up and down minor-league career thus far, but he had a tremendous showing in the Arizona Fall League. And he's got a troubling but inspirational backstory. Someone that I'll be rooting for. Especially today.

Good luck, fellas!

UPDATE 1:12PM - Turley is NOT impressing right now. Walked the first batter, threw wide to 1st base on a pickoff attempt (runner reached second officially on interference from Dan Johnson), got behind the second batter before giving up an infield single. Then an RBI single to CF to give up his first run. All before getting an out. Yikes!

UPDATE 1:19PM - Nothing has gone right for Turley or the Yanks. Still no one out. 5 runs in for the Orioles. A few wild pitches for Turley. He and we may just want to forget about this one. HEY! He just struck out Lew Ford. In other news, Lew Ford sucks. Ugh. Turley is out of the game.

UPDATE 2:01PM - Heathcott reaches base in his first at-bat on a fielder's choice. Not a particularly great at-bat, but it was nice to hear Singleton and Flaherty rave about the potential for the AA Yank's outfield of Heathcott, Mason Williams and Tyler Austin. 

Blogogenesis

Yeah, I know. I'm not there when you wake up in the morning, and you hate that! Actually, I'm under the bed. Just waiting for you to leave for work so I can do nasty things with your underwear drawer.

Now do you feel better?

Anyway, this happens to me every Spring Training. I just don't care about anything except baseball. Well, I still care about bourbon. And food. And The Walking Dead. Oh, and Gia...crap, almost forgot Gia. You see what baseball does to my brain?

Speaking of baseball, it brought a big ole' smile to my ruggedly handsome face to see some people actually care about February baseball games on Twitter the past few days. Sure, it's February. And if March baseball doesn't fucking matter, then I don't know what the hell we are supposed to do with February baseball. Me? I'm taking it out behind the junior high and gettin' it pregnant. That's how much I love me some February baseball.

Speaking of Gia, we've both been doing well with our diets. Well, we are trying hard not to call it a diet because we don't plan on it ever ending. It's more of a healthy life-style change. A Live-it, if you prefer. Ugh...I really don't prefer that. In fact, I fucking hate that term. Purge it from your mind, forget that I ever mentioned it. Here's what we are doing; controlling portions, limiting caloric intake, fresh ingredients, lotsa water, weekend splurging. Lather, rinse, repeat. It can be a little boring, but I'm trying to keep things interesting in both the bedroom (heyooo!!!) and the kitchen. That's how I roll.

Speaking of The Walking Dead, it's been fucking fantastic this year thus far. Haven't watched this past Sunday's episode yet, but I'm sure I'm gonna dig. Maybe they will finally do something interesting with that great big black hole of suck that is Andrea. Right now, I just want a spin-off where Carl roams the country just shooting fucking zombies in the fucking head.  That's it. That's all I want the show to be about. It's faint praise that annoying, little Carl has become my favorite character on the show. Everyone else needs to take a big step up...RIGHT NOW!

Speaking of food, Gia's sister is still rocking her food blog. Her latest installment detailed a Hobbit-themed party that she threw for her son's birthday. You gotta go check it out. I helped a bit with the preparation of the menu, but that's all. And since it happened in warm SC while we were stuck in cold NY, I'm more than a little jealous. Sigh.

Speaking of bourbon, I've got a new inexpensive favorite. Old Grand-Dad 100 Proof. I never gave it a try because...well, the bottle looked so cheap. Bad orange label. Bad orange plastic cap. It's around the same price as Jim Beam, maybe a couple of bucks cheaper. And I recently found out the Old Grand-Dad himself is Basil Hayden, a founding member of the bourbon expansion into Kentucky back in the 1700's.  There is another, more premium bourbon eponymously named after him as well. And the two share the same mash bill (oooh....getting me hot with all these fancy bourbon terms!). Just aged 6 years instead of 8. It's delicious! A bit more rye than your normal bourbon, which is something that really appeals to me over some of the wheated bourbons on the market.  Needs a bit of ice to mellow it, but that's how I drink bourbon anyway. So it works out perfectly. Don't judge the book by it's awful cover and give it a try.

And I'm spent. Bye!

Rock it!

Honestly, you should celebrate your holdiays anyway you want to celebrate them.

We went out for a wonderful dinner tonight. Came home with a rose for Gia, which Wolowitz was all over from the get go. He jumped into my arms as soon as we walked into the door and started messing with it.

It was most awesome. Look at that fucking tooth!

We have some wonderful pictures of the two of us from the night. But fuck that. Wolowitz playiing with our rose was and is so much more fun. Rock it.

Oh, and this was waiting for us on the chalkboard at our favorite local restaurant when we went out for dinner tonight.

I'm so lucky.