SF Beer Week - Part One

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

 

The other night we watched… an interesting movie called “The Ice Pirates” starring Robert Urich, incredibly young versions of Anjelica Huston & Ron Perlman… and I’ve now found a movie that stars that Bruce Vilanch guy you used to see on Hollywood Squares. This story is set in the far far future… in space… where water is the most valuable substance of all... which makes sense in a way. Well, a pirate crew led by Captain Jason (Urich) goes around stealing ice (cuz you know… water) and they stumble upon an adventure involving a space princess… and they try to help her find her father… and there’s a lot of robots, bad jokes, time warps, space herpes, swashbuckling, random N-bombs, more robots, space prairie dogs, a steamy “sex” scene in a Holodeck & more. Seriously though… the steamy sex scene… is apparently in a Holodeck that rains a torrential downpour… so essentially making it the most expensive make-out session of all time… you know… in this future world where that’s the equivalent of dry humping in liquid platinum or something. Anyway, this is billed as a space comedy (a few years before Mel Brooks proved it can actually be done with “Spaceballs”) but… it really isn’t funny. Like… I’m not even sure where you’re supposed to laugh half the time. I mean… it’s interesting just from a “What the… What am I watching? Was coke really THAT big in 1984?” kind of viewing… or “Holy sh*t! Is that Ron Perlman?” but other than that… might wanna pass on this one. It’s 80’s crap… but then again, maybe that’s your thing. If so, have at it. Probably not going to be watching this again.

 

Next up was a pair of superhero movies from last year… with vastly different public reactions. First up, I finally watched “Ant Man” starring Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas, Michael Pena, and others. This was the Marvel movie that seemed to be in development limbo for the longest time with the likes of directors / writers like Edgar Wright (“Shaun of the Dead”) and Adam MacKay (Will Ferrell’s career) all being involved… but then backing out. Same with the star that would play the titular role… so there was a LOT of questions in whether this movie was going to be worth a watch. Rest assured, it totally is. So the story is about a sort of Robin Hood-esque bank robbing character named Scott (Rudd) who has just been released from prison… and is going straight… and wants to see his young daughter… but it’s hard to get a job when you’re a convicted felon apparently. Well, while doing a heist at the home of a mysterious rich man (Douglas), he stumbles upon a special suit that allows the wearer to shrink in size, yet retain their strength & abilities… maybe even enhances them (that part was very vague & inconsistent throughout the movie). The man who owned/developed it had used it during the Cold War… but feared that it would get in the hands of the wrong people. Well, smash cut to the technology getting into the hands of the wrong people who have taken over his company in the meantime… and now he has to recruit Scott to wear the suit & save the world. I’ll admit, it’s kind of an odd story… but what really sets this movie apart is the GREAT banter between the characters & how it’s executed… and there are also some very interesting (borderline nauseating) action sequences while using the suit and switching between the sizes. I would HIGHLY recommend checking this movie out! Yeah, I’m sure you’ve probably seen it already… but yeah, check it out if you haven’t. I was late to the party… and this will NOT be the Death of Superhero movies.

 

 

 

 

Next up was this year’s re-reboot of “Fantastic 4” starring Miles Teller, Michael B. Jordan, Kate Mara & Jamie Bell as the titular group… and Toby Kebbell as Victor Von Doom… spoiler alert… he’s the bad guy. You TOTALLY wouldn’t have seen it coming based on the name. Even if it was an M. Night Shyamalan movie. Instead this movie was directed by Josh Trank (“Chronicle”) and… apparently this movie flopped SO F**KING HARD in theatres… and there was SO MUCH TURMOIL through the production of the movie & his interaction with the actors… that he may never have a big Hollywood movie ever again… and apparently he seems okay with that. It was odd hearing about the development of this movie… but yeah, regardless. You try to watch this movie with fresh eyes. I mean… could it really be worse than the two previous Fantastic Four movies? Or that late 80’s version that I’ve also seen? Both are hard to imagine. Well, the story is about these four SUPER smart teenagers from different background coming together with a sort of government braintrust to develop teleportation technology that… apparently two of these high school kids figured out on their own working in junk yards & stuff. Okay… so they come together to develop it… and there’s this mysterious dirt that comes back on things that are teleported… and it goes to a planet in another dimension (wait… stay with me). Then the government wants to step in to take over the project… because it’s risky. Fact. Well, the kids are unsupervised… have a few beers… and decide that THEY should be the first people to travel to the other dimension… so they start up the teleporter, go check it out… lose one of the team members there… HUGE fiasco… that leaves them with superpowers. The story goes from there… but honestly, the movie wasn’t as bad as everybody made it out to be. Was it enjoyable? Not really. The effects were kind of cool. Probably the biggest problem… was that some of the character motivations & decision making… is just f**king stupid. Also, I REALLY think that Kate Mara was FURIOUS throughout the making of this movie (and given the director’s challenges, very possible) because there is ZERO charisma or chemistry from her AT ALL in this movie. She’s basically a b**ch throughout… and I’m not sure that’s what her character is supposed to be? In the comics, Sue Storm was the binding agent that held the team together, right? It’s been a while… but yeah, stupid decisions being made by supersmart teenagers… but I’d still give it a glance. I don’t see them popping up in Avengers or any crossovers any time soon… if ever. Still, for the subject matter… what can you REALLY expect? Fantastic 4 has always been… a bit of a fantastical stretch for disbelief (GAMMA RAYS!!!) so trying to set it in a live-action true-ish atmosphere is gonna be tough. If this version didn’t do it… then I don’t see it really doing a Christopher Nolan reboot type of reimagining… and after losing tens of millions of dollars, I don’t see it ever getting funded either. Oh well… Marvel will be just fine… as will the respective actors & actresses in this movie. Probably not the director though… sorry Josh…

 

This weekend was also the start of SF Beer Week 2016 (scheduled a little early due to the Super Bowl clusterf**k over the next two week, BTW congratulations to the Denver Broncos & Carolina Panthers!!!) and Izzy & I are taking it pretty low key this year. See… almost everything involved with SF Beer Week is either SUPER expensive considering what’s being offered… or LOTS of people in a little space… but we’re trying to get involved in a few key, fun things. We stopped by BevMo to get some beverages to enjoy throughout… and that’ll be elaborated on our podcast later this week… but there were a few others things.

 

Our first adventure was going to Sessions at the Presidio on Sunday experience the Battle of the Guilds, where professional craftbrewers from San Francisco, San Diego & Los Angeles all came… set up their jockey boxes with some special beers… and basically for $4 per 10 ounce pour, you get to try their beverages… and vote for the city to win… the Battle of the Guilds. We met some great people, tried some great beers… it was a little odd where it’s essentially professional quality beer in a very homebrew presentation with the jockey boxes… yet also in a fairly elegant environment at a nice place like Sessions. Overall, I highly recommend it… and we made it out of there for about $20 for two of us & had a great time.

 

Later on Sunday, we FINALLY kegged our Barrel Aged Scotch Ale for the upcoming SF Homebrewers Guild / Seven Stills Distillery Barrel Aging Competition this coming Sunday. Basically, after trying this… and trying some of Izzy’s Unicorn Drool (barrel aged cider from a month or so ago), we’ve basically decided that everybody else is playing for 3^rd Place… because we’re going to win this thing. We’ll show off the trophy next week… but in the meantime, here are some pictures of the kegging process…

 

We also transferred our Imperial Stout to the then-vacant barrel… so in a few months (possibly around mid-to-late April, wink wink) we should have The Return of $teve’s Birthday Cake!!! Until then, we still have about a case of our first batch from last year to please our palettes. Mmm… come on by & we may share some…

 

Well, a busy week still going on… but plenty of great things to report on in the coming days. Stay tuned! The San Francisco Homebrewers Guild / Seven Still Barrel Aging Competition is going to be hella fun!!! Also, a GREAT way to end SF Beer Week!!! Let me know if you’d like to check it out. I think we may have a few extra tickets. Have a great day everybody!!!

Dino 13

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

 

Monday night, Izzy & I stumbled upon a documentary called “Dinosaur 13” about the discovery of the largest Tyrannosaurus Rex fossil ever found in the Black Hills of South Dakota… and incredibly bureaucratic sh*t storm that ensued once the United States government, Bureau of Indian Affairs & lawyers got involved. To sum it up, a few lifelong paleontologists were doing their thing one day… when they found the largest& most complete T-Rex fossil ever… and they bought the fossil from a guy for $5,000 which was by far the most ever given for a fossil & the guy agreed to it. Well, they took it back to their institute to excavate, clean up & prepare the fossil that they named “Sue” for a new museum in their hometown of Hill City, South Dakota… and then 30+ military vehicles popped up, threw them out, and confiscated all of their fossils… not just “Sue”. Well, what happens after that is borderline ridiculous… but hey, that tends to be the way when certain entities are involved. Now, the story is pretty interesting… and I ended up enjoying the movie overall… but I can’t recommend this movie from a pace standpoint. The movie is 90 minutes long… but I feel like if they had taken out a bunch of the unnecessary, super-pretentious, artsy fartsy BS that this movie would have been pretty entertaining… if only 70-75 minutes. Another major pain in the arse… was the subtitles. There were a lot… in small font… and always in white font… usually where at least a third of the subtitles were over a white image in the background… so you often have to pause the movie to see what it’s saying… or just fill in the blanks on your own… which if very frustrating and pointless to telling your story. So… if you like dinosaurs, check it out. If not, it’ll probably just frustrate the hell out of you… it’s on Netflix.

 

Friday night, Izzy, Katie & I had a booth at Zoo Lights located at the San Francisco Zoo… where they of course have thousands of Christmas lights up throughout the zoo for people to come see… and then a few booths of people selling their goods. We had a lot of super cute art and we made sure to have an emphasis on animals as the zoo clientele would hopefully appreciate some adorable sloths, pandas, and other animals… but unfortunately, there wasn’t a lot of traffic on Friday night. How did we react? We went and checked out the lights. Here are some cell phone pictures…

 

BIG NEWS EVERYBODY!!! IZZY IS AN AUNT!!! Her sister gave birth to a beautiful baby boy named Everett on Thursday… so Saturday we headed up to the Sacramento area with her mom & her half-sister Melanie (who I met for the first time) and we went to see the little bundle of joy… BEHOLD!!!

 

Afterwards, we stopped by The Canyon Grill & Alehouse nearby for some drinks and snacks… and then we met up with some family friends from the Jeep club that they were a part of and had dinner at a pretty unique place called Al the Wop’s… which sounds like a horribly racist name for a place… but hey… some terms get grandfathered in, I guess. It’s located in the city of Locke, which apparently is mostly abandoned… but it’s a pretty cool old Chinatown that’s been in disrepair for the most part. Again, a unique location… that I want to go check out during the day sometime. In the meantime though, here are some pictures…

 

Sunday night, we were set for another night at Zoo Lights… but it had been raining hard all day & incredibly windy, especially at Ocean Beach where the zoo is located… and with the anticipated low turnout, we decided to just stick in & watch football (also our fellow artist Katie had finals this week). However, Izzy & I also had some beer stuff to do… so we kegged our Belgian Chocolate Stout…

 

…and bottled our Barrel Aged Cider.

Only a few more days until yet another EPIC Utah Christmas vacation to see the family… and I’m pretty grossly unprepared… but hey, it’ll be fun. Unfortunately I’ve had some issues with my credit card at the perfect time for present shopping… but hey, you do what you can do. Absolute worst-case scenario… I’ll be back in Utah where my bank is for almost two weeks, so I can just take care of my finances directly. Anyway, I’m digressing… probably one more post later in the week… but don’t be surprised if you don’t hear from the blog for a bit while I’m in Utah. I have no idea where I’ll be or what I’m doing most of the time… but I promise that it’ll be full of entertaining anecdotes& probably some brewery tours. So if I don’t see you before then, have a fantastic holiday season everybody!!!

Tuna & Shark Soiree

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

 

Tuesday night, Izzy & I joined her mom and aunties for some Line Dancing at the Pinole Senior Center… and that may sound like a hellish day to most heterosexual males… but I’m not most males. I took a few ballroom dancing classes back in college… and I grew up in Utah when line dancing was part of the curriculum… and I’m just naturally graceful & athletic… so yeah, it was a pretty fun time. We did five different basic line dances over the course of two hours… and yeah, it was like waltz and cha cha and stuff like that… but the ladies were nice, the teacher Patty was great, and we had a few beers afterwards back at the aunties’ house. Not a bad night at all.

 

Thursday night, Izzy & I continued our Cannon Film adventures with what many consider Chuck Norris’ crowning achievement in filmmaking, “Invasion U.S.A.” This romp was directed by Joseph Zito (“The Prowler”, “Missing in Action” and “Friday the 13^th: The Final Chapter”) and stars Chuck Norris as a one-man army whose called out of retirement in the everglades to help save American from Cuban/Russian invaders who have snuck into the country… and are causing major acts of terrorism all over the state of Florida… and spreading fast. Now… if you’re looking for a politically correct take on terrorism, Russians, certain American subcultures, suburban life, please keep in mind that this movie was made in 1985. There’s none of that. However, the story has its flaws… but it’s still a pretty interesting take on how an invasion of the states might actually happen… and honestly, if you watch the news, a lot of the tactics that you see in this film… are actually used in other countries. Terrorists dressed up as police, paramedics, or other trusted public servants (before Michael Brown) and then opening fire on crowded public areas… or firing off missile launchers in quiet communities… causing mistrust between the people & public officials that are trying to help. It’s pretty interesting. At the same time though… it’s a Chuck Norris movie… and there are a LOT of explosions… and one liners… and yeah, if that’s what you’re looking for then you’re totally going to find it here. Oh... and I got Izzy a unicorn...

 

Saturday night, Izzy & I attended the Tuna & Shark Soiree hosted by the Farallones Marine Sanctuary Association at the Jewish Community Center. You may recall the Sea Slug Soiree from a few months ago… and this was very similar. For a nominal donation, you get a few drink tickets that you can use towards wine or beer or what have you (in keeping with the theme… the beers were Lost Coast Brewing’s Great White Wheat Ale and Ballast Point’s Big Eye IPA with a picture of a tuna on the can). Then there are some nibbles… some art on display for sale / donation… some activities… and then a special presentation, in this case it was a TED talk speaker Ms. Barbara Block talking about the importance of tracking tuna & shark populations and how it effects our oceans. The event was pretty fantastic… and here are some pictures…

Sunday was a bit of a wonderful rainy morning followed by a beautiful day… which means that we stayed at home watching football… but also starting our newest batch of beer, a Belgian Chocolate Porter/Stout. Our last batch was the Belgian Quad… and it’s been going great… and we mentioned how the Belgian yeast gives off different flavors than other yeasts. So we thought that we’d use the yeast towards one of our favorite homebrew recipes, the Chocolate Porter that we’ve made a few times… and just see how it changes with the Belgian yeast as opposed to the California Ale yeast that we typically use. It should be quite interesting. Here are some pictures…

 

We also kegged our barrel aged porter & put our Barleywine in the barrel...

 

Also over the past week, Izzy has been hard at work at completing a coloring book for all ages of Dinosaurs that we’ll be selling at upcoming events… including this coming weekend’s Pinole Crafts Fair (if they can get their sh*t together and process our paperwork), Central Valley Con the first weekend of December, and Zoo Lights at the San Francisco Zoo in December. Come on out and say hi! We’d greatly appreciate it… and while you’re out there, get some art in your life and enjoy the zoo!

 

Anyway, more awesomeness to come… but until then, have a great day everybody!!!