WTF Wednesday: Those Silly Japs #1

I love the way Japan does everything on a level we just can't compete with.  They work harder and they play harder (and much weirder).  It's like they are on Ritalin half the day and drunk the other half.  I have gotta get out there one day to hang with those crazy SOBs.

Woman blames sexual disfunction on Video Games

I am not talking about not getting laid b/c her boy-friend is on a 42 hour Modern Warfare marathon.

An Article a Yahoo News cover the story of a woman that blames the Wii Fit for her uncontrollable sexual urges.  If this does not make every man buy their lady friends Wii Fit, nothing will.

Beer Tasting: Kick in the Glass- Chili

So I got bored one night (as I do all too often), had no where to go and nothing to do (I need more exciting friends), so my roommate and I decided a beer would be nice (meaning we were awake and sober), so we opened the mini fridge finding this sad sight........

Ok, this probably requires some explanation, b/c I don't want people think that I buy Nat'i. I swear some random guest brought it into my house during a party and I must have missed it (If I had spotted it I would have made them leave it out side, but the damage has been done and it is useful to distract stupid people from the good beer). Also, I am not responsible for the Red Bull (Bull piss) or the Bud Select (carbonated water), but I find them less offensive then the Nat'i. Sadly I was between batches of homebrew at the time (my current ones might have a post later).

So clearly I had no beer to drink in the house- This is something that had to be rectified for my evening to progress. My Roommate and I went down to the closest wine/beer shop to pick up some interesting beers to play around with. We both picked the ever popular "build-your-Own six-pack" option and grabbed a few odd this's and that's to make the night fun. I grabbed a couple Double Bocks (my first beer love), a couple IPAs (a newer interest), a berry hard cider (I had similar cider in the fermenter at the time and wanted a bench mark), and one very odd and slightly scary beer, a chili lager.

Now, I have been kicking around the idea of chili in beer for a while. I know it sounds demented and gross to almost everyone. But I really love chills and beer and have been toying with the idea of Frankenstein-ing together the two.

This being said, I still had no idea what to expect from this golden elixir with its menacing green pepper bobbing around on the bottom. I sat with my bottle Crazy Ed's Cave Creek Chili Beer in my hand for a while while I debated if I actually wanted to drink this.

There were some signs that this might not be a great beer- 1. Its bottle is clear, a color normally only reserved for crappy Mexican Lagers, good sodas, and bitch drinks like Zima and Mike's hard Lemon-aide. 2. Its label was completely metallic gold in color (like a 1st grader got a hold of the glitter unsupervised and went ape-tits on his art project) and falling off. 3. The chili had spots on it. I am not sure if it was a result of taking up residence in the beer, or if they just use crappy produce in the production. Either way, it is not very appetizing to the viewer.

I popped the cap and heard the familiar his of gas escaping the bottle, but this time instead of making my mouth water and my pulse quicken, I felt slightly ill and nervous. The astringent smell of toxicly strong green chills reached my nose almost immediately. It was strong and it did not even have a hint of beer to its bouquet. I had already resigned to drink the beer, so I poured it into the waiting pint glass.

Glug, Glug, Glug, Plop- as the pepper haphazardly dove in to my glass. It danced on the bottom in swirling motion, much like a child tiring to dizzy them-self by spinning with arms out-stretched. The color was a typical light amber, the head had very little retention- typical for lighter lagers, and the smell was distinctly reminiscent to that of a jar of pickled jalapenos.

I could not avoid drinking this brew much longer.  After holding the glass up to the light to give the questionable looking pepper a final salute, I partook of the pungent potion.

It burned. At First there was no taste at all, as my tongue was too distracted my the sheer amount of heat. The warm feeling of spicy heat enveloped everything from my mouth to my stomach. After what seemed like an hour (but was only a second tops) the taste came, and it was green, grassy peppers. A flavor I love and long for from time to time. But the flavor was too astringent in its delivery and the enjoyment was not there. The heat (maybe given through the addition of some capsaicin concentrate of some kind) swallowed the the fruitiness of the peppers and blocked out all traces of the malt and hops. All that was left was grassy heat.  It was powerful, yet completely lacking the complexity to keep my interest beyond my second sip.

I did break a sweat as a continued to brute-forced my way through the pint, but I endured.  I would have dumped the glass, but I payed good money for that beer and I firmly believe in the "No Beer Left Behind" mantra.

As I tipped the glass up to get the last bit into my now abused gullet, the pepper menacingly rolled toward me. "Should I?" I wondered aloud.  My house-mate, who I nearly had forgotten was by my side, laughing at me, through this entire ordeal replied- "You already got the bitch drunk, You might as well fuck her."  I shrugged as I tweezed the soggy pepper out of the bottom of the glass with my stretched fingers and examined it one last time. Its spots were even more off-putting without the glass between us; its flesh was overly soft like it has been boiled for hours, and its plastic skin was slick and shiny. Despite my repulsion at the idea, I bit the pepper from the stem and crewed.

Fire. The heat shot through my sinuses and made my eyes tear up.  My face, already damp with perspiration, reportedly turned noticeably redder.  It was a pulpy in texture, like wet tissue paper. I had to ditch the pepper mush in my mouth fast. I spat into a trash can in the next room after a frantic/spastic dash/dance to it.

It was over. I beat the beer. The pepper beat me. 1 out of 2 ain't too bad.

Afterwards, While i sat on the couch letting the burn linger through my mouth and down my esophagus, I contemplated chilies possible role in beer. Chilies come in many varieties- some fruity, some spicy, some are dried to intensify, and some are smoked to add complexity.  Beer uses all sorts of things to add to the beer- coffee, fruit, chocolate, cloves, honey, and other edibles.  Why can't the chili?

The people at Crazy Ed's concentrated on heat and shock factor with this beer.  I will agree that they did accomplished that.  But there is a lot more one can do with the chili then make people sweat and turn red.  Using the less spicy, fruiter, and maybe even smoked peepers available at the average supermarket, a quality enjoyable beer maybe possible.  I think chilies can be used to make a enjoyable and complex beer, but this one was not it. One day I will get to try this one out in my own experiments. Until then, avoid Crazy Ed's Cave Creek Chili Beer- it is a "I dare you to drink it" novelty beer that should never be bought in quantities greater then one bottle.

l8r g33k$

P.S.- This guy it overacting a bit.

The best Video game movies never made

Hollywood is full of people with lots of money and very little in the way of a new idea. That is why all movies seem to be based on books, older movies, TV shows, and yes even video games.

Today I will celibrate the fore mentioned source with the most inconsistant results- Video games. After all they made the Super Mario Brothers Movie and they made the Tomb Raiders. Inconsistant at best.

Here are some movies that should never be made for real.

Zelda

Reason: They would Just fuck it up too much for a poor geek like me to bare.

Tetris

Reason: Since the fall of the Berlin wall movies involving Russian things just don't do it for me any more (James Bond really needs a USSR reunion to make him shine again)

Dig Dug

Reason: OK, You got me. After seeing this preview I will say that this one needs to be made. Best thing to come out of Hollywood since "The Notebook". Your sitting on a Gold Mine Trabeck.

Mario Paint

Reason: Too Art Film to make it in the main stream.

Well I have wasted too much time now.

L8r g33k$

Google Slut

Google owns me.

Plan and simple, Google is like my sugar mama girlfriend that I have told way too many secrets too; making a possible breakup very ugly. I use it for internet searches, e-mail hosting for all of my emails (even the ones with my custom domains), picture sharing, finding directions, wasting time staring at the planet, keeping up with all my RSS feeds ( I really love this one), and it even host this blog and handles all the ads on it. My favorite thing about all of these services is I don't pay them one cent.

I know I am subjected to thousands of ads over and over again, But I get that kinda thing when I am walking down the street w/ billboards, flayers, store signs, logos on clothes, and even the distinctive sound of a Harley Davidson. So I just don't give a damn that a banner add is sitting off to the side minding its own business. Don't get me wrong, advertising does work, I sometimes even buy the products advertised, but I have never given Google any money directly. I find that incredible. If I were to pay for the services that Google gives me for free, I would probably be paying $15-35 a month plus the cost of all that Google apps software whose alternatives are pricey to say the least.

So this brings the question of what is Google's angle. Am I being taken out on a nice date by Google to just be slipped a mickie and date-raped? (And if it does, will it at least call me in the morning and apologize?) Does it have to resort to date-rape? Would I be willing to just let Google have its way with me if it just asked? I don't want to tip my hand, but I would like Google to know this now "I am very cheap and you try anything I will so go back to my X, Ask Jeeves,"

All I am saying is- keep you eyes open and remember not to share too much of all your personal data with something that seems almost too good to be true.

note: I am gonna find a comp I can install the new Chrome OS onto and put out a review ASAP.

Page layout/colors ect...

So I am trying to figure out a better look for the page. Not sure what I want to do with it. I am thinking of trying to do some kind of retro game look but not chosen an approach yet. So what are your thoughts? Get rid of the black background? Would Atari or NES be a better path? for that matter any particular game to style after? I am open to suggestions here.

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Going down with the ship -The Pirates Bay

Anyone who has been paying any attention to the outside world recently would have noticed that pirates are getting slapped around something fierce. Mind you, some are a dicks and have it coming (crazy African kids with guns) and but others are just all about copyright infringement.

It is no big shock that I don't support holding people hostage at gun point, but my feelings on those criminals who have the bad habit of borrowing copies of strings of 1s and 0s are far less negative. Many of us were young and poor in the days of Napster's great reign of file sharing. I may have "borrowed" copies of songs (and nudie pics) from the web from time to time (with the full intent of paying for them later of course).

As time progressed the names and technology invovleved in such media "borrowing" changed, from Napster, to Limewire, to bit torrenting on on. I will admit to nothing, but I kept my eyes open to the evolution of this technology and watched it grow from mp3s and jpg's of nude ladies, to entire seasons of TV shows and movies before they hit the theater. I feel that file sharing and I have almost grown up together, making it one of my oldest and most giving friends (never brings the beer but he is fun to be around none the less).

So it hurt me to hear one of my favorite venues for data dissemination has decided to close its doors. The Pirates Bay after a life of fighting the good fight (for poor people looking for media/ bad fight for the fat cat media kings) has finally chosen to take the recent torrenting advances and legal losses to make this its swan song.

I bid you farewell The Pirates Bay, may you have favorable winds on your voyage to Valhalla. (insert single tear here)

Woot off!!!!!!

Pull out your charge cards and help end this recession.
If you don't know what the hell I am talking about read THIS

The √ of the matter

As I restart on this Blogging adventure I am trying to get down to spirit of the site. Its simple goal is to provide a view of the Geek World to the others in and around the Geek community.

Looking at the Dictionary.com definition of Geek gives some idea of the audience of this potential blog (observe 1-b). The only trouble is that I have no real full drive on any one area of interest. Truth be told I am very ADD and have trouble focusing, Therefore I lick any real discernible geek classification on myself; I am not an Anime geek, or a gamer, my programing skills are weak, and can't pick a side int the Star Wars/ Star trek war. I like videos games, love history, I built my own computer, watch one shit ton of sci-fi, pride myself on my vast quantities of random knowledge, am an Eagle Scout, compulsively keep up on tech news, worked for nearly a decade at a summer camp, have a weekly D&D gaming group, and am moderately socially awkward. All the tell tale signs of a Geek. I will attempt to give the view of a non-specialized Geek (It's like picking a major in college, and I have wanted to change that about 20 times) on the rest of this odd subset of culture. I could consider myself a Renaissance Man if I wanted to be an arrogant prick, or maybe a geek of all trades, but I just call myself a every day Geek- the Every Geek of you will.

So I will take it as my job as a general purpose Geek as share better understanding amongst the nerdy masses, and keep them appraised to semi-important news in areas of interest (ok, mostly stupid shit that is interesting enough to share).

Avoid the Sun,
Wes

Return to Geekness

So I will admit it- I failed. I let this little Blog project of mine die before it was every really born. Trouble is I was never really happy with the look of the page and had never really chosen what the direction of the commentary would be. I don't want to be like every other geek-centric blog out there; bitching about how every episode of their least favorite sci-fi show is an affront to all intelligent life on the planet (mind you I read those blogs, but I don't want mine to be that).
So I will try to update 2 times a week or so, aiming for the T-days of the week, but will probably miss more then I hit them. The direction and tone will bounce around a good deal trying to find its voice. All I ask of you, the reader (I leave it singular b/c chances are it is only one of you out there- Hi Otto!) to let me know what works and what is complete dribble.
Suck-it-Trabeck,
WWS