As my 5-month old daughter (let’s refer to her as Fussypants) probably would have said, if she’d stayed awake long enough to watch Lost last night. Spoilers after the link.
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This just made my day. Via

Well first off allow me to introduce myself.  I’m Exoder and I come from the planet of Metaluna.  *adjusts glasses*

I consider myself a connoisseur of many things.  Cheese, music, movies (bad ones, horror films and usually both being my specialty), and the best of all: Beer.  Seeing as I gave up alcohol for lent, it seems appropriate for my first post to be about the delicious and wonderful beverage that my all too sober life desperately misses.

There seems to be two camps that all beer drinkers put themselves into - hopheads and stoutheads (though that term and concept is up for debate).  While I don’t agree with putting yourself into a box (being a moderate liberal as well), I do still feel the need to declare, as it were.  I am a stouthead, though I do love hoppy beers as well (Ruination from Stone being one of my absolute favorites).

So with that in mind, I have to tell you all about a stout I discovered recently that is quickly becoming one of my favorite beers - Anderson Valley’s Oatmeal Stout.

This is easily one of the most drinkable beers I’ve ever tasted, as there is nothing harsh at all in the taste.  Extremely smooth taste, with all kinds of coffee overtones, and one of the more refreshing finishes you’ll ever have in a stout.

Anderson Valley is based out of Boonville, California, so for you west coasters, you have no excuse.  If you spot a six pack of this or even just a bottle, get it!  You won’t regret it.  And pour a little on the ground or carpet of the bar (they’ve had worse on that floor) in honor of your brother who can’t enjoy one for another few weeks.  Cheers!

I know it’s completely impossible to have any kind of objective standard by which to evaluate movies. There’s no such thing as a “Best Picture” on which everyone will agree. But I have to say I’m pleased with the academy’s selections. The one really important thing the ceremony does is raise the profile of movies that may not have been all that high on people’s lists. Suddenly, No Country and There Will Be Blood become must-see’s, and that’s fine by me. One day a year, movies are celebrated more for their artistic merit than their box office… which then helps their box office. A win-win.

But there exists no better representation of the continuing draw of movies than the sight of Cormac McCarthy (Cormac freakin’ McCarthy!) standing up in an apparently involuntary spasm of jubilation when No Country for Old Men was awarded Best Picture. If the notably reclusive author is going to the Oscars (let alone getting swept up in the excitement), I don’t feel so bad for, say, waiting in line for Indiana Jones tickets.

So the 2008 Academy Awards are in a few hours and I’m all a-tingle with anticipation.  After several disappointing years of movies like Crash and Gladiator winning the big prize, last February the academy found a pair and sent the most violent, disturbing movie of the year home with the little gold man.  This year should prove interesting, as the front-runners are two movies shot in the same desolate, God-forsaken Texas town and featuring the two most insane performers/performances since DeNiro ate copious amounts of ice cream and steak and nearly died for his art in Raging Bull.  If pre-Oscar awards shows are any indication, No Country For Old Men will be victorious, and it’s quite a competition when that little stomach-turner seems like the safe choice.  There Will Be Blood indeed.  And probably a few tears… 

If I weren’t already married to the beautiful, deadly Angry Teti, I think I would want to marry this band:

It’s Abney Park rehearsing their song “Airship Pirates.” Full mp3 here. A taste of the lyrics:

Flying Jib is filled with air
East India ships filled with despair,
we even up, her broadsides bare
…our cannons flair but it’s just a show of muscle.

Expendable crew starts to reel her in.
Our swords are sharpened and we’re ready to sin.
I’m 3 miles up, we’re about to swing aboard.
My tether’s made of leather so I’m not about to fall here.

A swish of air and my boots hit deck.
No cash, no fuel, no – not a speck!
Grape shots made this bird a wreck.
And a glance below deck shows a crew of nuns and orphans!

Chorus:
With a crew of drunken pilots, We’re the only Airship Pirates!
We’re full of hot air and we’re starting to rise
We’re the Terror of the skies, but a danger to ourselves now.

They totally get points for namechecking the East India Company. Everybody now, sing along! And now I’m going to have to go re-install Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura….

So Be Kind Rewind is coming out in a few short days, and I’m really looking forward to it. I think this the first movie of ‘08 that I’m excited about, in fact.

The premise (two dudes accidentally erase all their VHS tapes, and decide to re-shoot them all by themselves) might seem either far-fetched or hokey to you, or maybe you’re not a Jack Black fan. Even if both of those hold true (and I can understand being annoyed by Black at times, though I really think he’s good in quite a few things), I still think you should approach the movie with an open mind.

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Pleasing design, helpful content, clever domain. What more could you ask for? Nothing.

Via

I think I, like many Indy fans, were probably a bit skeptical and reserved after hearing news of the upcoming fourth Indy pic. The (then) trilogy had ended on an appropriately high note in terms of quality, so the immediate worry when hearing about a new film is, of course, that they’re going to screw it up completely.

And the movie may well be a misstep—George Lucas seems to be taking an unfortunately close interest in the production, and with no Nazis, is it really going to feel like a proper Indy picture? What about that title? The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull? I like Shia LaBeouf, but will he be another Short Round?

Amazing how the thought process can be short-circuited by, well… something like this:

Now I’m whistling the theme to myself as I work, and thoughts of Lucas’ meddling are disappearing quickly. There still could be issues, of course. The initial trailer music sounds a lot more Zimmer than Williams (yes, the distinction is probably pretty minimal), and whither John Rhys-Davies or, for that matter, Sean Connery?

Still, though… I have to say I’m pretty excited now. Opening day, here I come.

The Chacojones loves to eat. What makes the Chacojones fantasize about hanging marketing executives upside down is having to learn a new vocabulary for each chain he eats at.

When did the memo go out to Corporate America that naming their product sizes ’small/medium/large’ was for the testicularly challenged? At some point, marketing executives, bored with their lives, frustrated with their women and needing to invent something to make them giggle, got together to invent the worlds most annoying game - letting Ridalin-deprived art school dropouts name the sizes of their companies servings.

The most famous is of course the Starbucks pseudo-italian, which I might argue is also the most annoying, because when you order a ‘Grande Latte’ at Peets Coffee, not only do you feel like a tool (as well you should) but then you get the look of disgusted attitude from the emo hippie freakshow serving you, which then forces you to hurt them and puts that extra felony on your permanent record.

A special award for being kicked in the metaphorical corporate nuts is Tully’s Coffee chain, which has given up and actually adopted the ‘tall/grande/viente’ pointlessness. If coffee chains were Europe, Tully’s would be the 1940 France of the stimulant beverage continent. That’s right, in this metaphor, Starbucks is Germany. Live with it.

However, there are even more annoying serving sizes out there.

You want a tasty Jamba Juice? Would you care for ‘16oz’, ‘Original’ or ‘Power’? What the hell is that? These three sizes are not even in the same semantic categories. One is named after the order in which it was introduced, another is the volumetric measurement, and the other is a completely subjective adjective. I have thus re-named them ‘Wussy’, ‘24oz’ and ‘A Bit Later’. I encourage everyone to follow suit.

You feel like a delicious Cold Stone iced cream? Your choices are ‘Like it’, ‘Love it’, or ‘Gotta have it’. Seriously? Only in America could a company base the naming process for their serving sizes on the proposition that one’s desire is directly proportional to volume. The thinking here is apparently that if you like the ice cream, you would naturally have a normal amount, but if you truly love it, you will obviously need to gorge yourself unconscious. Yet, when you go in to order a pint and ask for an “I’d Murder a Man for It”, they just stare at you before they call the cops.

So, unless you want to start seeing tasting spoons re-named “I’ll Choke It Down”s, please join me in openly mocking every establishment that does not use ’small/medium/large’ on the menu. And if you meet anyone responsible for this trend, kick them in the Chacojones.