Bachelor(ette) Party

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

 

This past weekend was my Bachelor Party… well, sort of. Originally it was going to be a gaggle of us (male & female) just having a wonderful weekend in Santa Cruz… but unfortunately one guy hurt his back, others had work & other real life stuff happen… so essentially it was just a wonderful weekend with my future wife, her best friend Flea, and her cousin Amy briefly. TEAR IT UP!!! We had dinner at Lazy Dog in Cupertino Friday night, then spent the Saturday checking out breweries in the area & the Santa Cruz Boardwalk.

 

First stop was the taproom for Santa Cruz Aleworks where we had some pickled eggs, chips & salsa, and some of their beers on tap including an Oatmeal Stout, Kolsch & their season “Rye Like An Eagle” IPA. Good stuff, check them out…

 

  

Second stop was Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing about two miles away. Their taproom had a REALLY cool copper tree growing behind the bar… and their drink selection was pretty impressive as well. I personally loved their People’s Porter. Here are some pictures…

 

Then we stopped at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk to have some lunch, play some arcade games & take great pictures…

 

The third brewery of the day was Sante Adairius Rustic Ales in Capitola about ten minutes from the Boardwalk. He had visited this location a while back and… frankly weren’t that impressed with the selection. However, our beer buddies informed us that apparently we must have hit them on a bad weekend where they were doing a bunch of festivals or something because they have DOZENS of distinct beers available typically… so we tried them again. This time, there was definitely more selection with about a dozen different brews that were essentially a variety of IPAs, saisons & porters… and yeah, they’re pretty damn good. Check them out if you’re in the area. I wouldn’t make it a destination brewery just yet… but definitely worth a stop along the way…

 

The fourth & final brewery of the day was New Bohemia Brewing and… frankly this was our favorite of the entire day!!! This is the first time that I’ve heard of them, but the taproom is on point… their beer selection was low in variety but great in quality. They had a beer called Queen Bee which was an “Imperial Honey Lager” which is a style-bender kind of beer… but it was very malt forward, very potent with nearly 10% ABV, and extremely delicious. Check THAT out! The others were really good too, including a Dunkelweizen. They even let us bring in some badass burritos from down the street to the bar. Best of all though… they had LIVE bluegrass playing BEHIND THE BAR!!! Check out Wail Aways online!!! Definitely check them out if you’re in Santa Cruz… heck, I saw check their schedule for live performances & coordinate a trip to go see them. Great place… here are the pictures…

  

So yeah, not your typical Bachelor Party… and honestly it was just a wonderful weekend hanging with my fiancée & her best bud… but yeah, absolutely fantastic weekend! Can’t wait to do it again!

 

Also, we brewed a Honey Amber...

 

...and we tested our Cheese Fountain for the wedding... spoiler alert, it works lovely.

 

Since then, I’ve been… experiencing some unpleasantness. My work has been accusing me of completely ridiculous things… I assume to get a rise out of me (or keep me in the company as long as possible for as little pay, which is a poor method of retaining exceptional talent). My former roommates are trying to extort money from me too. Basically when I moved out, upon their request, I left them a couch and gave my stereo to a roommate. Well… six weeks since the last time anybody has contacted me concerning… anything, they send an email requesting that I pay half of a trash pickup bill for those items (and stuff from another roommate who wasn’t officially on the lease so good luck proving that SHE even lived there… dizzy cunt). For many reasons, this is ridiculous. If they didn’t want the stuff, gladly would’ve taken it or disposed of it back when I did the rest. Also, there’s a free service with the apartment that takes care of all of that. ALSO, send me a text & I can take precious time and effort out of my day to remove my items for you. Nope. Just send an email saying that I owe them hundreds of dollars because… they decided that they didn’t want the free stuff six weeks later. Yup, I told them that it was completely ridiculous & wished them the best of luck with their new living arrangements. Drop mic.

 

The “Event Horizon” episode is up at eilfm.podbean.com on the Everything I Learned From Movies Podcast, but coming up in a few days… the next episode will feature a fairly similar movie, 1998’s “Sphere” starring Dustin Hoffman, Sharon Stone & Laurence Fish… NOPE, SAMUEL L. JACKSON!!! You may want to listen to the podcast to find out why I specifically had to point that out. Beers were involved… as is always the case on EILFM. Until next time, have a great weekend everybody!!!

We Need More Teeth

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

 

Saturday morning, Izzy & I woke up a little early for the weekend and hit a matinee viewing of “Jurassic World” starring Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard and M.F. T-Rex. Yes, this is the 4^th installment of the Jurassic Park franchise… and after the original 1993 movie shaped an entire f**king generation, the two sequels were… well, not horrible per se but… definitely horrible by comparison & in blockbuster movie potential scales. (shiver) Okay, I’m going to set you at ease right now & tell you that Jeff Goldblum & Tea Leoni are NOT in this one. Based on the previews… I REALLY expected this movie to suck… like really bad… and I was still going to watch it. F**k it, I’m a dinosaur nerd… always have been… my brewery is called Terrible Lizard Brewing for Christ’s Sake!!! While we were at NHC, the movie opened to a half BILLION dollar opening worldwide… and reviews were good… so we had to check it out. This movie takes place back on the original island of Isla Nublar from the first movie… and they’ve actually opened the theme park… and it’s been open for about a decade or so… and things are good… but stockholders demand bigger, badder dinosaurs… and apparently so do the guests (?) but in the rush to have the next, new bigger thing… oh, at this point, if you haven’t seen the original Jurassic Park, watch it RIGHT NOW!!! I realize that I haven’t explained the plot (you know, theme park with dinosaurs brought back through genetic science magic) but just assumed that everybody knows it… like everybody knows the basic story of WWII or something… it’s just something that everybody should know. Anyway, the park has been open for a few years… and for the next big thing… they created a new dinosaur. No, not just resurrected an extinct species like the other 20 dinosaur species on the island… but they basically created a new species by taking traits from all the others & combining them (not unlike their Dilophosaurs from the first movie) to create a super baddie!!! The rest of the movie is them discussing how they’re going to spend their lucrative earnings and open another park in the Azores… possibly another near Macau. OF COURES NOT!!! SOMETHING GOES WRONG!!! SH*T GETS REAL!!! SUPER BADDIE GETS LOOSE!!!

 

Now, this movie… was pretty f**king entertaining. How good was it? When the new roommate wanted to watch it again on Sunday, we went… and I paid full price. That’s right, about $40 of that billion dollars that this movie has made in the past two weeks worldwide was mine… and not just because I’m a nerd. This movie pays a lot of homage to the first movie (pretty much skipping #2 & #3 though, for good reason) and all of the things that I thought would be really blah based on the commercials (let’s face it, the human element, especially the Pratt-Howard relationship and family drama in general) actually wasn’t horribly done. It feels a lot like an 80’s movie. You know, the Spielberg-y schlock that you & I probably grew up on… but still resonates as an adult for some reason. You want the brothers to make it out together… you understand why people are doing the things they do… you understand why Chris Pratt’s character loves his Raptor Bros as if they were his own puppies, but respects them as if they’re semi-domesticated wolves… you actually feel some of that. It’s not just filler to make the movie a full two hours while cutting down on visual effects like most movies. You’re concerned for these characters. Most of us have been to Disneyland, Sea World, the zoo… so we can kinda understand what it would be like if one of the grizzlies got loose & started eating other animals, people in concession stands & taking out helicopters. Okay, that last sentence might be too much… but still, that portion of the movie is well executed.

 

Let’s be honest though… you want to see some mutha f**king dinosaurs… that’s why you’re watching this movie! You’re not paying to watch a romantic comedy starring that guy from “Parks & Rec” and Opey’s daughter… you came to hear a T-Rex roar like a 747 with bathroom-like acoustics. You came to see raptors tear things to shreds. Maybe you came for a whimsical kayak cruise past some herbivores like stegosaurus & some longnecks… until this new Indominus Rex comes through & messes up your day. On that note, you get a LOT of dinosaurs… and yes, it’s mostly CGI but there are still some practical effects & plenty of action pieces throughout this movie… and the final fight scene… HOLY SH*T, the final fight scene… sorry for my tumescence… but it’s pretty f**king good. I highly recommend that you check this movie out… and hopefully the sequels to follow will be good too. LOVED IT!!! Currently, I’m still debating whether to push it all the way to #2 on my Movies of 2015 list thus far… it’s battling “Chappie” and I watched that movie again Sunday night… and they’re both pretty damn good… but I think I have to give it to Jurassic World because of Dinosaurs. You know the TEN THINGS list. “Mad Max: Fury Road“ is still #1 though… go see all three of them immediately… Chappie is out on DVD already.

 

Also, all three roommates have been replaced with three new ones in the last month… and so far, the new ones are pretty f**king awesome! We’ll call them Lucy, Brah & TBD. Lucy moved in at the beginning of June with her teacup Yorkshire terrier… and yes, I fear for that animal’s life around my feet… but she’s a good dog & her owner is pretty cool… not your typical twenty-something that I’ve had too often as roommates. She’s legit… from small town Warshington… and a little hickish. Brah is pretty much your typical brah… but he’s pretty cool too. I haven’t seen him much as he moved in while I was at NHC… so it’s really been like a week & he’s out checking the bar scene… but yeah, pretty cool. TBD is TBD… but we had interviews on Wednesday as the roommate they’ll replace basically told me she was moving out while she was doing her final packing… and frankly, I was perfectly okay with it… just made sure a few of my kitchen items were well guarded since I seem to lose a lot of stuff whenever roommates move out… especially the bitchy ones. Weirdest thing… like I don’t know where they‘re moving to or have released them from the lease or something. Anyway, super excited about the new roommates.

 

Anyway, just a quick entry… NBA Christmas was last night… so you’ll get one of those boring (and incredibly accurate) info-rants shortly… in the meantime, have a great day everybody!!!