Philly Beer Week Calendar

It’s coming March 6. The 2nd annual.
10 days.

I was sick with the flu for most of it last year but I managed to make one event, the Passyunk Ave. pub crawl, which dropped me off at Ray’s Happy Birthday Bar, hence the picture. This year there is lots of goodie- the list is extensive and still growing. It’s going to be a great time.

The Brew Lounge created a really nice Google spreadsheet of the events calendar. Download it now.

The official Philly Beer Week page is here.

Oh, The New York Times did a piece on the Philly beer scene a while back.

Chunes

I just never tire of good hippity hop. If stuck on a deserted isle, which genre would I choose if I had to?
Hmm.
Soul first, then hip hop.
Most of this stuff isn’t too new but chances are, you haven’t hear it.

MP3: GZA- Beneath the Surface

MP3: MF Doom & Madlib- Peeyano Keys

An undiscovered gem from 2007, on The World is Ours LP:
MP3: Ill Poetic- The Beautiful

MP3: Common Market- Push

MP3: Madvillain- Shadows of Tomorrow (Flying Lotus rmx)

MP3: Flying Lotus- Roberta Flack

MP3: Pete Rock & INI- Baby Pa

MP3: Quasimoto-Low Class Conspiracy feat. Madlib

And one of my favorite hip hop bands:

MP3: Black Moon- War Zone

Skunk

Ddog and I hung out at Skunk and Molly’s sweet loft then went to check out Moulinex and Xinobi spin bangin French disco house at Kung Fu Necktie under the El.

A bunch of total nerds wearing, I shit you not, MATCHING sweaters were gyrating all over the dancefloor, which kinda ruined the music for me, but Skunk kept his eyes glued to them trying to dance. Said it was like watching a trainwreck- he couldn’t take his eyes away.

Skunk and Molly have a couple swings in their place:

And they also built a Leggo house for Burning Man. They actually lived in it:

MP3: Xinobi-Day Off

Big Boys

Left to right:
Green Flash Hop Head Red
Port High Tide Fresh Hop IPA
Moylan’s Hopsickle Imperial IPA
Left Coast Hop Juice Double IPA
Avery Maharaja Imperial IPA

Each of these 24 oz. bad boys is a high octane highly hopped double (or imperial) IPA. All very good West Coast style IPA. None really stood out over the other, but if I had to compare them based on every criteria, I’d have to consider their price.

All of them cost over $80 a case. They Moylans was over $110 a case at Westy’s in Camp Hill, Pa; it cost over $16 a BOTTLE at the Foodery in Philly. Ouch.

A better bet? As I’ve said before, you can’t beat Green Flash. Their Hop Head (pictured) or their West Coast IPA are neither double IPAs- Hop Head is a hoppy red ale, and West Coast is merely a standard IPA, but they both rival the other big boys and they only(!) cost around $45 a case.

While I’m on the subject, the much anticipated release of Bells HopSlam has happened. I got myself a case for $76. It’s a whopping 10% ABV but you wouldn’t know it at all because there is no overly sweet maltiness found in most other high octane brews. The best part is that it tastes and smells like the hops were placed in the mix straight off the vine just minutes ago. Seriously. It’s the freshest hop flavor I’ve ever tasted. The only problem with it is that it sometimes has a very slight aroma of… armpit! Really. B.O. Must be a characteristic of one of the hop strains or something, but it doesn’t really take away from this wonderful beer.

Anyway, here’s the best news. HopSlam basically sold-out around here the day it was released, but I just got off the horn with the owner of one of Philly’s beer distributors and he’s holding six cases of the stuff literally in a secret room behind the cash register. He told me to send my friends.
Let me know if you’re interested.

Center City to finally get an Apple Store

An OFFICIAL Apple store is in the works at the recently-closed Brasserie Perrier on the 1600 block of Walnut Street.

We already have Springboard Media on the 2200 block, and Bundy just around the corner on Chestnut. I know the owner of Springboard and he has assured me many times that he isn’t afraid of Apple moving into Center City because most of his business is made up of Mac client support services.

Although most of have been waiting a long time for Apple to finally move into the city, we really haven’t been hurting for one like other parts of the country, as a commentor wrote in the Appleinsider forums (I don’t really know why he felt the need to write each number AND spell it out!):

There are SEVEN (7) Apple Stores within 65 miles of Philadelphia. FIVE (5) of them are within 25 miles and FOUR (4) of those are inside of 18 miles. Two are within 10 miles.

I buy most of my Apple products refurbished so this really won’t affect me much, but the one time I bought a new Powerbook I got it at the Delaware Apple store, just to avoid the 7% tax.

I heard the old Mike Douglas Show, which I watched every day as a kid, was taped in the same building, so I’ll leave you with this:

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that the Please Touch (Me) Museum is getting the actual keyboard featured in the movie “Big”.

Just One More Day…

Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out, Mr. Bush.

MP3: Murs-Bad Man!

Ah, Craigslist

How I love you so. But your no-frills interface looks the same as it did in 1998, and you attract a LOT of weirdos.

I’m always buying or selling something on craigslist and luckily all of my transactions have been very pleasant. At the moment I’m selling our old dining room set and I got this reply, which sounds just too good to be true.

Hello
I appreciate your response to my inquiry. Am interested in buying
it from you. I would love to come and check it myself but I just got
married and am presently on my honeymoon trip to Hawaii with my wife.
Pls do withdraw ,with immediate effect, the advert from Web as i
dont mind adding $50 for you to do that, so i can be rest assured that
the item is held for me. I should believe it is in good condition as
stated. I will be making the payment via a Certified Check, which my
secretary will mail across to you. I’ll be picking the item from you
with the aid of my mover. My Mover will be coming to pick it from you
once the Certified Check has been cashed.
Pls I will need both your full name and physical address to issue
out the payment.

It’s almost an exact duplicate of the example scams craigslist warns us about here. Example scam email:

Thanks for your mail, Since the cost of your bike is $800 i just contacted my client about the cost of your bike and it present condition and he said there is no problem about that.So my client said he will be issuing you a
Certified Check of $4000 while you wire 3000 to me through Western Union
Money Trasfer and you deduct the cost of your bike $800 and keep the
remaining $200 which my client said you should take for the terms of
Transaction and Agreement between you and my client.So i will like you to
send me your full contact information to where my client will be sending you the Certified Check…

The only thing I can’t figure out is this: If it’s a scam, what the heck would he/she want with this old dining room set? It’s not like it’s a laptop, or it can be sold for double the money on the black market. The set isn’t worth a penny more than what I’m asking.

But I still think it’s a scam. I just can’t figure out what to write back to this arsehole. Let me know if you have any suggestions.

In the meantime, I WAS going to copy and paste a post left in the ‘Bicycles for Sale’ section but it got yanked in the last few minutes so its gone. Funny as hell. Titled “To the guy who puked on my bike outside WaWa” and went on to thank the guy for barfing on his Huffy cuz when he went home he told his wife that he puked from too much exercise and now she’s pampering him and is goin’ to let him watch the Eagles game without bitching at him… so he asks the guy to meet him at the same WaWa next week so he can puke on it again.
Classic.

Alan Partridge narrates The Spy Who Loved me.

I am Alan Partridge is available in Region 1.  Don’t worry about the second disc from netflix… it’s mostly deleted scenes and long takes.  Steve Coogan is brilliant.  Be sure to check out Hamlet 2 and 24 Hour Party People too.

There’s some cussing so consider it not safe for work.

Original Alan version.

NSFW

No Top Ten

Dammit.
It’s too late to list my top songs/records of 2008… and there was a bunch.
In fact there was SO much great stuff over the year I guess it’s a good thing since I wouldn’t be able to decide on just ten and it would turn into a “top 67″ or something.
I’ve posted a lot of my faves in the past anyway, so here are a couple more I’ve had in constant rotation:

MP3: Little Dragon- Constant Surprises

MP3: Little Dragon- Twice

Little Dragon. US neo-soul, right? Breathy, chartreuse songstress from Newark, no?
No.
Lead singer Yukimi Nagano is a Swede of Japanese descent. Amazing LP.

Looks like I just missed them at the M Room on the first of December. Damn.

Dammit again. Lunch hour is over, so no time to list the remaining 66 songs. I’ll just have to leave you with these:

MP3: Deerhunter- Agoraphobia

I dogged Deerhunter after seeing them live last year. I take everthing back. Their latest (third) album, Microcastle and its bonus disc Weird Era Cont., is excellent.

So is frontman Bradford Cox’s side project, Atlas Sound.

MP3: Atlas Sound- Cobwebs

Here are some top 10/25/50 lists from other sites I dig through often:

Big Stereo

3Hive

Yellow Stereo

Gorilla vs Bear

HearYa

The Scene

I grew up on this show. It was broadcast from WGPR channel 62 in Detroit, the first black-owned station in the country. Man I miss these old styles and these tunes.
For years I looked for a bright red pair of Stacy Adams pointy-toed shoes like one of the dancers had. Had to settle for a grey pair.
At least they matched my narrow grey leather tie.

One of my favorite albums from the 80s, on Tommy Boy Records:

MP3: Jonzun Crew-PacJam