Northern California Homebrewers Festival

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

 

Last week, Izzy & I went to the California Academy of Sciences for Nightlife… so here are a few pictures from that… always fun…

 

This past weekend was the 19^th edition of the Northern California Homebrewers Festival at Lake Francis… and it was glorious as usual. Once a year, homebrew clubs from across the state meet up, rent out a campground, and basically have a magnificent 36 hours of worship towards Beer!!! This was our 3^rd time attending… and first time that we were actually there for the Friday night portion, including Hoppy Hour (though we got there just as they were wrapping up). Here are pictures…

 

The theme this year was Belgium, famous for waffles, chocolate, all kinds of stuff… but most importantly… monks making beer!!! Well, they’re also famous for… Les Stroumpfs… aka The Smurfs!!! So the San Francisco Homebrewers Guild decided to decorate our booth in the fashion of a Smurf Village… and here are some wonderful pictures of our booth…

 

…and there were plenty of other booths with great designs…

 

So yeah, the event was amazing, the people were great, the weather was decent, camping is fun, beer is yummy, as is greasy food, so yeah… can’t wait to go again next year!!! Until next time, have a great weekend everybody!!!

The Wedding Post

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

 

Yup, it’s official! I’m a married man. Last weekend, Izzy & I drove up to the Lake Tahoe area… and got married on the beach at Sand Harbor… and paperwork was processed in Nevada… and we lived happily ever after. End of story. Okay, so it was a little more complicated than that… but that’s really the main chunk of it. Basically, the portion of the story that we’ll probably laugh about in the future happened about six hours before the start of the ceremony… when we had just pulled up to Alibi Ale Brewing (that’s been open about 18 months in Incline Village) and Izzy got a call from the people doing our ceremony… and we had to change times… and possibly venue… because it’s been good weather… and the Shakespeare Festival… and a band performing at the same time… where we’re supposed to get married. Now, had there not been weekly check-ups by Izzy in the months following up to confirm the ceremony & that everything needed was taken care of… at any time they could have casually mentioned that there was even potential of something like this, then it probably wouldn’t have been a huge issue & we could reschedule & coordinated with the family who traveled across two states to be there. However, six hours before? There was some vigorous discussion… and long story short, we rescheduled for an hour later & they did the ceremony gratis. Here are some pictures from my phone… but better ones on the way…

 

Afterwards, we had a nice party with our new friends at Alibi Ale Brewing!!! See, earlier in the day with the rescheduling, we had to cancel our reservation plans at another place (and frankly they probably appreciated it), so their head of marketing happened to be behind the bar, and she offered to save a few tables for us in their beer garden area if we wanted to stop by, bring our own food & have our post-ceremony dinner there… and we totally took them up on their offer. The beer at Alibi… is pretty damn good. They specialize in ales with wild yeasts, saisons, and basically unique beers… but still have a good kolsch & porter on tap for traditionalists. The staff is obviously super friendly… and they’ve apparently been growing at an exponential rate since they opened 18 months ago. I highly recommend checking them out if you’re in the area & seeking them out when/if they reach your neighborhood. Here are some pictures of their establishment, both during the day & at night party…

 

 

Oh… and while we were up in North Lake Tahoe, my WIFE Izzy & I stayed at The Ritz-Carlton, Lake Tahoe… and had a wonderful time. Again, great service, great people, great facilities.

 

The following Sunday, we had our California reception in the backyard of Izzy’s Aunt Teri & Uncle Don… and it was magnificent. See, the ceremony at Sand Harbor was very small due to regulations… so then we basically catered our own party & invited our California friends & family and attend… and then the following week, do the same thing in Utah for those friends & family… but I’m getting ahead of myself. We had a great turnout for this party… and here are some pictures of our wonderful friends & family… and the decorations… and the legendary nacho fountain…

 

The next few days, we worked a lot…

 

This past Thursday, we drove to Reno and slept a few hours at the Sands Regency Hotel & Casino… and I have to say, for only being there about six hours, sleeping five of them, it was a LOT of fun. We got there around midnight, got some fantastic $2 tacos (less with a coupon), grabbed some $2 Bud Light Platinums… and had a nice snack before bed before heading out early. May have to spend some actual time there one day. We also grabbed some breakfast at the café the next morning & it wasn’t too bad. Check them out…

 

Friday was basically a LOT of driving… but we stopped in Park City to meet up with some of Izzy’s coworker friends, and then grab a bite to eat at Jupiter Bowl, a bowling alley with a five star chef. Check them out if you’re in the area as well. Then… we drove to my mom’s place to meet up with Izzy’s mom, maid of honor & her boyfriend… kind of get things in order for the reception on Saturday… but then spent the night in the Alvin Cobabe Suite at the Columbine Inn atop Powder Mountain in beautiful Eden, Utah!!! It was fantastic!!! And AFFORDABLE!!! Here are some pictures…

 

Saturday was the Utah reception… and of course there was some drama… but the ceremony went great, my wife looked amazing, friends & family that I hadn’t seen in a decade stopped by, and yeah… it was just a great, moving experience. Here are some pictures from that as well…

 

The past few weeks have been… hectic to say the least. Lots of planning, lots of coordinating, lots of frustration, but more than any of that stuff… LOTS of LOVE!!! Izzy & I are so excited to start our official married life. Dozens of my closest friends & family came out to give us well wishes… and basically everybody who’s important in our lives are nothing short of overjoyed for us. I know that with some weddings out there, many people can question the choices being made or the union being celebrated… but really none of that with us. I think it’s because we’re both amazing people, who genuinely love each other, and let’s face it… we’ve been together over four years already so we’d probably have figured out if we weren’t compatible. I’ve just felt so much Love over the past few weeks from everybody while doing all of this… that it’s basically drained me… and I’m sure that Izzy feels the same way. Luckily, we both have a great honeymoon planned starting this Friday to help recharge our batteries!!! Such a great start to our life together!!!

 

We’ll definitely keep you posted on all that… and more pictures of the ceremony, etc on the way… if just for our own posterity on the internet… but maybe you’ll enjoy them too. Also coming soon, pictures from our honeymoon in New Orleans & the Caribbean. In the meantime, feel free to check out the Everything I Learned From Movies Podcast where we have a WONDERFUL selection of movies coming up while we’re out… such as “Eraser”, “Running Man”, “Showgirls”, and all of our past episodes. Catch up if you need to… and until next time, have a great day everybody!!!

Good Bye Bachelorhood!!!

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

Again, I’ve been a little lacking in my updates… but ironically it’s because I’ve been so busy. The wedding is moments away… so I thought I’d throw in one more blog post before half of this blog becomes Izzy’s. Let’s see… what’s new?

Last weekend, Izzy & I hung out with Big Ben & Lone Cicerone to hang out, drink a few beers, trying out our Nacho Cheese Fountain, and watch some Game of Thrones… because we party EPIC!!! Pictures of the fountain in action coming soon with the wedding & receptions…

I passed the Beer Judging Certification Program (BJCP) online exam and have taken the tasting exam… but I apparently won’t know the results for 2-4 months, so I’ll be sure to keep you posted. I feel pretty optimistic about it all though. I’ve been learning a lot… and Izzy has too… even though I really haven’t had a whole lot of time to bunker down and study, I feel like we did pretty well. So hopefully I’ll be BJCP certified in time for all of the Oktoberfest festivals & pumpkin beer.

After the tasting exam, our teacher Keith Kost (who’s won more homebrewing ribbons than… I think just about anybody… seriously, this guy knows his sh*t and has forgot more than you’ll ever learn) invited us to his new home for some pizza & beer. His homebrew setup is… without exaggeration, the bottom half of his house. He also has a fully bar with four taps, something like five fridges for storing his dozens & dozens of beers, a cellar for his sours & aged beers, it’s just basically what every Man (and a few women) which their basement/garage looked like… complete with a sh*tter & shower somewhat randomly in the middle of it. F**king gorgeous… he & his wife were gracious hosts… and again pictures coming soon, mostly for my own reference when I get some space & a home…

We also helped clean up the backyard of Izzy’s aunt Teri’s house for our wedding reception on Sunday… so that was fun… but yeah, the wedding is mere hours away now. The plan is to go to Lake Tahoe for the actual wedding, small ceremony on Sand Harbor Beach…then back to the Bay Area for a California reception… then the following weekend drive out to Utah for a reception out there. Pretty easy, right?

Sorry ladies, I will no longer be the single & ready to mingle man that I was in my… I don’t know, mid-27’s? Yeah, haven’t really been that guy but… yeah, It’s gonna be great… I’m super excited to marry the Love of my Life and start our life together. So until then, I’ll have plenty of pictures and stories when I come back… but have a great weekend everybody!!! Check out Everything I Learned From Movies Podcast if you haven’t already. It’s… pretty amazing. Good bye bachelorhood!!!

SUICIDE SQUIZZAAUUUUDDD!!!

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

Izzy & I had a wonderful opportunity to see a preview screening of a movie that I have been waiting YEARS to be released… and that is the latest movie from the DC Comics Cinematic Universe “Suicide Squad” from director David Ayer (“End of Watch”, “Fury” & “Sabotage”)!!! Now, for those who may not be aware… the Suicide Squad was a comic book series where a group of DC Villains are assembled by Amanda “The Wall” Waller (I’m not sure what her official title is other than “bad b**ch who runs sh*t” but something like director of some secret government agency) to basically use their powers to save the day as kind of… forced mercenaries (think Snake Pliskin in “Escape from NY”). In this movie, when Midway City is under a “terrorist attack” / Incan Witch Gods set on destroying humans, Amanda (Viola Davis) must assemble a team to take them out because… I guess Batman & Superman are busy in their own movie? Anyway, she assembles a team featuring the legendary mercenary Deadshot (Will Smith), the Joker’s ladyfriend Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), Killer Croc (Adewale), Slipknot (Adam Beach cameo), Captain Boomerang (why does Hollywood like Jai Courtney?), Diablo (Jay Hernandez), Kitana (not Miho from Sin City), and led by decorated officer Rick Flagg (Joel Kinnaman)… who also happens to be banging the lady who one of the witch gods has possessed. Got it? Good… now let’s go to the Pros & Cons…

What I Liked About this Movie

·         The Premise of the Movie – Look, I’ve been excited about this movie for years… and it has such great potential… and some of the aspects really shined. They’re a group of misfits coming together to do something good. Check. Not all criminals are absolutely evil… even if all they do is kill a bunch of people with no remorse. Ugh… okay, I’ll allow it under the right circumstances I guess. The overrunning theme of “bad b**ch” saying jump through this hoop or I’ll ignite a grenade that’s lodged in your skull to do her bidding. Dark… I like it. I love Escape from New York… hell, even L.A. wasn’t too horrible… or “Lockout” / Space Jail which was the same story (so much so that they had to pay an undisclosed amount to John Carpenter this past week, but not this movie). What I’m saying is… there’s potential. This is basically the Guardians of the Galaxy of the D.C. Cinematic Universe… and in case you forget, they’ll remind you at any moment with everything from the makeup of the team, the soundtrack, the color schemes, all that stuff. Seriously, I kinda want to do a side-by-side of the two groups… but hey, Guardians made a LOT of money… and this movie probably will to.

·         Harley Quinn eye candy – It’s what she’s there for… let’s be honest. Is her superpower the ability to make a dead man come as Mick Jagger would say? She’s f**king insane, brings a baseball bat to a gun & fire fight, doesn’t provide any intel on the situation, and is constantly getting people killed by trying to escape with her boyfriend but… DAT ASS!!! GIVE THAT ASS A SPIN-OFF MOVIE!!! Oh wait, they already are… so yeah, for being an absolutely pointless character in the actual movie, I can’t wait for all the drunk chicks dressed as trailer trash with a baseball bat with their boyfriends dressed as Li’l Wayne meets David Bowie during Halloween this year… but more on that other guy later.

·         Will Smith – The man is Hollywood gold. He can act, he has all the charisma in the world… and when he’s not making sons for his son Jaden to ruin, he’s always making money for producers around the world. Without him, this movie never gets made. Maybe some half-ass version of it but… he really ends up leading this movie. Between him & Viola Davis as Amanda Waller, that’s really 80% of the actual acting going on in this movie, I think. Also, action-wise, the scene where Deadshot goes solo ape sh*t on the army of “tar monsters” or whatever they are… easily the high point of this movie. It’s what the whole movie should have been.

·         The Soundtrack – There’s a pretty prevalent theory out there that if your movie is sh*t, as long as you spend a lot of money on easily recognizable songs that keep people vested in the movie, you should do okay. Guardians did this. Deadpool did as well. However, there’s a very thin line before overcompensating and making a soundtrack absolutely ridiculous & annoying. Now… I have the soundtrack as something that I like on this movie because… it was okay. However, there were quite a number of points in the movie where I thought “this song doesn’t work here, there should be an orchestral score or something else… the music is stealing the scene, not complimenting it.” You’ll know the scenes when you see/hear them… but yeah, I’ll allow it in this case.

What I Didn’t Like About This Movie

·         “The Threat” – Look, I’m giving the drama introduced in this movie a pass because you need conflict for the movie to work. I get that. My question throughout the movie though was… okay, so a little backstory, the Enchantress & her Brother (Incan Witch God things) are these super powerful beings, thousands of years old, and are reawakened in present day Midway City. Humans no longer fear them… so they are devising this weapon to destroy all humans… and apparently it takes the Enchantress several hours of belly dancing & levitating about a hundred tanks & hummers in a giant orb a few hundred feet in the sky over a skyscraper to create this weapon while… her brother scratches himself in the corner? Okay, I dig it. What is this weapon? What could it possibly be that will destroy all humans? I mean… it’s not like they’ve been tearing through them like tissue paper anytime they approach them, or turning them into an army of tar monsters as I mentioned before. The weapon… is basically just a way to blast satellites… and satellite dishes… apparently knocking out our communications links & making it so the citizens of Midway City (and I assume the world) can’t play Pokemon Go. NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! Where’s Superman??? Is he at another congressional meeting??? (slaps forehead)

·         The Joker – Look… I admire that Jared Leto has gone full method acting into being a crazy f**k while preparing & playing the Joker role. I get it. I also know that without Joker & Batman playing a part in this movie you’re left with… Rick Flagg played by Robocop reboot guy (who actually did pretty damn good in my opinion but… kinda thought he looked like a meth head most of the time) and you need it to tie into the cinematic universe that they’re making. I know why the Joker is in the movie… but this Joker is not the Joker. In this movie, Joker is all psycho… with no fun or flair or charisma. Frankly, no idea why Harley Quinn or anybody would enjoy being in the same room as this guy… less fall in psychotic love with him. This Joker just seems so f**king angry all the time & is not enjoying himself, which is kind of the basis of his entire character. That f**king annoying laugh of his is the perfect example. Think of a good Joker laugh! You’re thinking of Mark Hamill’s from the animated series probably, right? Not the laughing pocket thing from Jack Nicholson’s pocket once the batteries wore out of the first Batman movie. He’s just not intimidating… or likeable… or anything that Joker should be. The love story with Harley is just more disturbing than anything relatable. I get it… their mental health is lacking. Also, he dresses horribly… but hey, colorful, right?

·         Captain Boomerang – WHY DOES HOLLYWOOD INSIST ON JAI COURTNEY??? He’s just not good! Also, the character is an Australian guy with mutton chops who throws boomerangs. Okay. What else you got? Oh, he chugs random beers in almost every scene? Awesome. What else you got? He carries a pink unicorn stuffy? You stole that from Deadpool! Why? Ugh… okay, well at least he does something at some point in the movie to help out in any way, right? NO!?!?!?!

·         Killer Croc – Sigh… do you remember Jamie Foxx as Electro in “The Amazing Spider-Man”? I’m fairly certain that they just adjusted the color of the costume from blue to green to make this character. Poor Adewale probably had to be in makeup for like six hour each day… to do little more than move like one of the monkeys from “Congo” and try his damnedest to make intelligible words come out of his mouth. He was supposed to be the Drax the Destroyer of the group but… ugh… nope. Bane was more intelligible than Killer Croc.

·         Adam Beach Cameo – Poor Slipknot… played by Native American actor Adam Beach (“Windtalkers”) but… well, let’s just say that when you’re introduced really late in the movie & your superpower is being “able to climb anything” that you might as well be wearing a red shirt in a Star Trek episode.

Overall Impression - I would definitely check out the movie. Thanks to the marketing & PG-13 rating and all the stuff that came up recently… I went into this movie was some low expectations, especially considering the badass potential of the premise. Jesus… WILL SMITH IS IN THIS MOVIE!!! MARGOT ROBBIE!!! Tom Hardy was almost in this movie until he was replaced with Robocop last minute. Amanda Waller makes her debut!!! JOKER & BATMAN!!! The movie was better than my low expectation… but not as good as what it could have been. Typical middle of the road stuff… and frankly, there are a few good scenes… and a few scenes that’ll make you question who the f**k made this movie (slow motion in the finale keeps popping up in my mind as “WHYYYY?”) but overall, compared to a lot of other movies out there, this wasn’t bad. There were… mixed reviews in the theatre that I watched it in afterwards… but more positive than negative. I hope there’s a good R-rated version of this movie coming out with the Director’s Cut but… I’m sure it’ll be middle of the road as well. Still though… DAT ASS!!!

Anyway, just a few thoughts to throw at you before you go & see the movie this weekend. Let me know what you think… maybe you’ll get a shout-out on the Everything I Learned From Movies Podcast!!! Have a great day everybody!!