Bad Luck City Blog

I didn’t mention the first annual Philly Beer Week: because all the other beer bloggers covered the hell out of it. But I guess most of my readers (all 2 of them) don’t read any beer blogs, so here’s the scoop. It’s actually a week and a half, there’s at least 4 events every one of those days, and all sound great.

The big question is, will I be allowed to attend any of them? If I attend a beer-tasting event on a sunday afternoon then my whole day is shot because this lightweight is hammered after 4 samples. If I COULD, here’s my pick for the most interesting happs:

Friday March 7: Joe Sixpack will be hosting an event at the new Marketplace at East Falls. My buddy Porter is going to this one…

Saturday March 8: In Persuit of Ale will be hosting a beer run to the Dock Street Brewery in West Philly. Can I just ride my bike, or is that cheating?

Sunday March 9: This is the big boy- the Brewer’s Plate at the Constitution Center.

Monday March 10: In Persuit of Ale’s ultimate beer trivia contest @ Triumph Brewing Company. This would be your chance to meet the hotties from IPA without feeling creepy.

Thursday March 13: Philly Beer Geek beer trivia finals @ Johnny Brenda’s. It’s the final culmination of a week’s worth of trivia contests held throughout the area. Should be fun. Earlier that day is a pilsner gala hosted by Lew Bryson at the Triumph Brewery in Old City.

Sunday March 16: I think if I had to pick ONE event, this would be it. The Real Ale Cask event at the Triumph Brewing Co. in Old City.

The brewlounge blog calendar of events is supposed to be more comprehensive than the official Beer Week site, but the site seems to be down at the moment.
There’s also a calendar over at the BeerYard site.

This week’s City Paper also has spread on Philly beer.

So that’s what I’d do. I’ll probably only make it to a few of these, so if you plan to hit any of the events, drop me a line and twist my arm!

I had a subscription to Rolling Stone Magazine from the late 70s to the early 80s. Yeah, it sucked back then too. Every issue was all The Rolling Stones, The Clash, arena rock, blah blah blah.
I found this ad from J&R Music World and found it interesting how expensive electronics and games were back then. Especially considering wages at the time. I think minimum wage in 1984 was $3.15 and hour!

This really happened:

This Wednesday while driving home from work past the John Heinz Natural Area near the airport, there, right next to I-95 was a bald eagle. Yup. A bald eagle just outside the city limits. The funny part? I swear to God, the radio was playing America the Beautiful. Granted, it was a cheezy commercial on KYW for the purple heart or something, but still. Isn’t that weird?

No, no no. Ddog thinks I hate Comcast because they built their new headquarters directly in my line of sight so I can no longer see the nicer-looking One Liberty building from my deck.
Or because when I signed up for cable in my new house, I didn’t have a choice of providers so I signed up with Comcast. They didn’t show up the day they had promised (1 vacation day wasted).
Or their stance on a la carte programming.

Yes, Comcast DOES employ many of my fellow Philadelphians. Heck, they even hired my buddy Ashton fresh from his bicycle courier job and he’s now a bigwig with the company making high six figures.

What bothers me is that Comcast is like Microsoft or George W. Bush. Pick any random issue of the day. Chances are, you and I are on ONE side of that issue, probably the same side. Comcast and the rest of the evil empire? Nine times out of 10 they’ll be gunning for the other side. Every time.

Their new scheme? Opposition to Net Neutrality. Read about it here.
In a nutshell, we consumers and Internet surfers go online and assume we’ll be able to access any Web site we want. That’s the way it’s been since inception, and that’s what’s driven innovation, democratic participation, and free speech online. If it wasn’t for the open ‘net, companies like Yahoo, Google, Amazon, eBay etc. probably wouldn’t have had a chance.

What Comcast, AT&T, Verizon and other corporate providers want to do is become gatekeepers, deciding which Web sites go fast or slow and which won’t load at all. They want to discriminate in favor of sites who have paid them off while slowing down or blocking their competitors. Don’t believe me? Here are some quotes from their CEOs.

So what kind of hijinks are they up to today? According to today’s Inquirer, Comcast has admitted to paying people to take up seats at a public FCC hearing in order to crowd out supporters of net neutrality.
Nice.
Like the millions they spend on lobbyists isn’t enough- now they have to erode the democratic process further.

About 35 people - mostly men dressed in jeans and baseball caps and one in a camouflage jacket - were parked in the first three rows of the auditorium drinking coffee and reading the Boston Globe, she said.

They were “regular Joes” who looked like they could have come from Dunkin’ Donuts, Bracy said. She was surprised to find them there several hours before the late-morning event. “I thought, great, we’re reaching out to new communities.”

But Bracy’s suspicions of the Internet activists grew when none of them appeared to know about wireless Internet capabilities and two in the front row fell asleep during the hearing.

Comcast’s strategy is basically censorship, putting their own interests before the public good. Fuckers.

The good news? It looks like congress and the FCC are on our side since a bipartisan (yes, a Repub. on my side!) committee introduced the “Internet Freedom Preservation Act” on Feb. 12. It still hasn’t passed, so it wouldn’t be a bad idea to contact your congressman.
Also, big names in the high tech sector are behind Net Neutrality, including Amazon, Earthlink, eBay, Facebook, Skype, and Microsoft. (Microsoft? well, they’re still evil, considering this week’s antitrust fine they had to pay in Europe… but that’s another story)

What can you do?

1. Sign the SavetheInternet petition.

2. Dump Comcast and go with Earthlink and Dish, or just get a rooftop tv antenna.

3.Every time you drive by the Comcast Building flip the bird and yell “EFF YOU COMCAST!”

Joe Gibbs
1943-2008

Legendary Jamaican record producer, born Joel A. Gibson in Montego Bay, 1943, died of heart attack 21 February 2008.

His music was all encompassing and was hard to pigeonhole, unlike Studio One’s C.S. Dodd. His name is synonymous with Rocksteady, but his career spanned the 60’s all the way up to the 90s. The artists who recorded for him is too long to list, so I’ll include just a few here.

Joe Gibbs produced a large portion of the late great Dennis Brown’s enormous collection. Here is perhaps Dennis’s biggest hit:

Dennis Brown- Money in my Pocket (alt. version)

Download MP3

Junior Byles- Heart & Soul

Download MP3

And for a bit of rocksteady…

Roy Shirley- Hold Them

Dowload MP3

And last but not least, we can’t forget this hit which has had quite a run in the past few years after being reissued on the original album and many compilations.

Althea & Donna- Uptown Top Ranking on Top of the Pops around 1978

Joe Gibbs on Wiki

Roots Archives discography of Joe Gibbs

Joe Gibbs anthology on reggae-vibes

Joe Gibbs on youandmeonajamboree

 614 miles apart.  

I think it was 6ABC who flashed the phrase “STORM WARNING” in large letters across the TV screen this morning.

People, I know you get sick of us Northerners whining about your wimpiness toward snow, but this is just winter precipitation. It is not “dangerous.” Isn’t a warning supposed to warn viewers to take immediate cover? I know it’s not you dear readers, it’s the media and its sensationalization and constant race for ratings, but man, it gets worse every year.

SNOW does not equal STORM, OK?

I have to admit though, that ice “storm” we had last Tuesday WAS pretty bad. I was driving on I-95 in the thick of it and witnessed more than one actual crash. Ice with freezing water on top of it on the highway is much different than snow covered streets like we have today. You do NOT need to drive your four wheel drive SUV 5 miles an hour.

Ok, enough bitching.

I finally got the opportunity to take my kids out sledding. It’s funny how any tiny bump can be turned into a great sledding hill. They had a blast in the empty lot on the corner. “just stay away from that broken 40, honey. And put that needle down. Its dirty!” Just a bit different than my childhood in the sticks.

My fondest childhood snow memory? I was telling ddog about it on the train this morn:

My parents had a large group of friends who were all quite young when they had us kids, so they were still partying pretty hard when I was young. They all lived 5 or so miles apart and there wasn’t really any subdivisions around in my area of Michigan back then.
They all had at least two snowmobiles so they’d all get together late at night and snowmobile from house to house through the fields and woods. When they reached a friend’s house they’d go in for beer and coffee and Boonesfarm, rally the friends to throw on their snowmobile suits and boots, fire up the sleds and join the posse. By the end of the night they’d have a group of 20 or more and they’d have travelled up to 40 miles. The kids would sometime all be left at one of the houses for a huge sleepover, or they would pack 4 or 5 of us in one of these trailer thingys. (below)

Damn, that was good times.

A long time ago I mentioned that double IPAs were my favorite style of beer, and Stoudt’s Double IPA my favorite of the bunch, with Dogfishhead 90 Minute a close second.

Well folks, a Boulder Colorado brewer has invaded the Philly market and has just taken the coveted prize of Thinman’s favorite double IPA.

The Boulder Beer Co, Colorado’s first microbrewery, makes a Mojo IPA which can be found on a few taps in the area along with Sweaty Betty Blonde and Hazed & Infused. Mojo Risin’ Double IPA comes in at a whopping 10% ABV and is just a touch smoother than my previous favorites.

The best part? It’s only $31 a case at Bell Beverage in South Philly. (It’s over $50 at a distributor in my hood). The first time I bought it I thought they charged me the regular Mojo price. But the second time, (yes, I actually bought the same brand of beer twice in a row- it’s that good!) they double checked the price. Stoudt’s comes in 10 dollars higher at $41/case… and its local, which doesn’t seem to make much difference anymore btw. Considering the hop and barley shortage, 31 bucks for a highly hopped 10% imperial IPA is a steal.

I think I might stash a couple 4 packs (it doesn’t come in sixes) in my crawlspace for this time next year when, as most pundits are predicting, hoppy beers will be all but extinct (I’m not kidding- Tupper’s Hop Pocket is already on hiatus with many more to come).

Mojo Risin’ is part of Boulder’s limited release Looking Glass series.

Oh by the way, I had to add Flying Dog Brewery’s Double Dog IPA to the picture because it is so similar to the aformentioned double IPAs. It actually gets a higher grade at beeradvocate than Mojo.

And on the topic, I’m happy to report that Flying Dog is now pretty much an East Coast brewer, recently closing its Denver brewery and brewing exclusively at the Frederick, MD facility, the former home of Wild Goose. Correct me if I”m wrong, but I think this might be the first time a West Coast micro has relocated in the East.
East Side, ya’ll!
Oh nevermind.

The Loose Cannon? It is NOT a double IPA but a great IPA with a VERY aromatic hop nose in the same vein as Troeg’s Nugget Nectar and Bells amazing Hop Slam. Its alcohol content is 7.25% and is available year ’round unlike The other two. Gotta give Baltimore’s Clipper City Brewery some props for that. But please guys, shorten the name. “Heavy Seas Loose Cannon Hop3 Ale? C”mon!

I swear this is the last tangent I’ll take, but speaking of Bell’s Hopslam, I tried it for the first time this weekend at Saint Steven’s Green and… WOW. They really outdid themselves again. It’s the most floral smelling beer I’ve ever experienced.
The price? $65 a case. IF you can get it. The owner of Bella Vista Beer Distributor told me it’s nearly impossible to find.

Guess what he recommended instead? You guessed it. Mojo Risin’.

Two big dates back to back. 1/20/2009 and 2/17/2009. Fortunately we are all too prepared for the former… it’s been a long time coming. The latter… well… few are prepared and even fewer know much about it besides its few PSA’s running on affiliates. Free TV is going to cost you $20 or so with a government coupon.

If you pay for TV, no need to worry other than why you’re paying for commercial television. Remember when commercial-free was a promise of subscription TV?

The NTSC (Never the Same Color) broadcast standard will be screeching to halt and its lovely replacement ATSC (Always the Same Color) will take its place. The 4:3 standard and its oddball frame rate of 29.97 frames per second will stop echoing off of clouds and buildings. It will forever snow on channels 2 through 83.

Lots of folks will lose their local news, Price is Right, mid-day Hogan’s Heroes, Prime Time line ups, and possibly their church. But what about that Global Thermo Nuclear War? What if someone does want to play a game? Or… What if there’s a flood and everyone has to get to higher ground? What about those many who don’t get the set top box in time? Will they have to use a radio for emergencies?

The Thinman and I have been early adopters of ATSC broadcasts. Mostly all of the consumer TV’s now have ATSC tuners. But sadly… I fear that a huge chunk of the population will be missing out on their stories as well as their Emergency Broadcasts… although that system is pretty archaic.

Is there a need to panic? Prolly not, but there should be more outreach.  Someone’s going to miss out and be all like, WTF?

I will be having an “end of broadcast” party at my house btw.

I listen to the Engadget HD podcast every week and for the past year or so, the topic that takes up 90% of airtime is the format war. I have no idea how many hours of my life I’ve wasted reading forum and blog comments of fanboys on both sides argue their side of the war.
Engadget and the HTguys tried to remain neutral, and they all predicted that the war would rage well into 2009, but it is now official.

HD DVD is dead. It was even on the front page of today’s Philadelphia Inquirer.

They said the first real indication was during CES, when Warner studios announced they were going exclusively blu.

Am I happy? Quite. Why? Don’t laugh, but one of the big reasons is because Mr. Evil himself, Bill Gates, chose the red side, and I’ll choose whichever side he’s NOT on. I know I know, he’s not so evil now, with he and his wife’s charity work, but I like to hold grudges.

In any case, it’ll all be old news in a few years, since really, spinning disks are about to go the way of reel to reel tape. That’s right. This might be the end of optical media as we know it. In my lifetime I’ve seen the evolution happen: vinyl, reel to reel, 8 track, cassette, VHS, Cd, DVD, Blu Ray, and now…. data transfers done wirelessly and stored on solid state memory.

AppleTV and iTunes, Netflix, Yahoo, Comcast, Vudu and others are all trying to be the next big supplier of digital media.

The obvious question is, who will win the NEXT war?

EngadgetHD’s take on the format war, with naturally, lots of arguments from both sides

I had a couple extry tix to the sold out show Friday night at JBs so I jumped on Craigslist to unload them. To my surprise there was post after post begging for tickets. “help a brother out!” one pleaded.

MGMT are gonna be big. Almost every post mentioned MGMT first, even though Yeasayer were the headliner.

Need more evidence? I happened to follow two of the members of Yeasayer into the venue and we all went straight to the merch table. My friend mentioned that she liked the Yeasayer tshirt best even though they weren’t the band we were interested in. The Yeasayer member, pointing to his band’s shirt, turned to me and said, “this is the better shirt, but this is the better band.” That summed it up well.

Yeasayer actually put on quite a good live show, but MGMT got the songs, man.

Yeasayer happened to tape the Conan O’brien show earlier in the day, so when I got home I got to see their appearance before hitting the sack. Pretty cool.

MGMT:

YEASAYER: