Review #8: A South Park commercial

It had Stan wearing these pilot goggles saying "please let me do this one thing just this once" and the Randy yells and smashes his head into a china cabinet. Good stuff.

Review #7: Random episode of "Girlfriends" on UPN

Since I don't have cable I watch TV with the bunny ears. South Park comes on at eleven, then comes Drew Carry, Becker, Cosby, then by 2:00, Girlfriends is on. This show is syndicated now, that's how I watch it, but I didn't know it was still in primetime. Apparnetly it is. So these two friends are fighting, something horrible happens to one of them, and they build up to them forgiving each other. At first they make light of the suffering of the one, but then get really melodramatic at the end, with a church and a choir and a big if-you-cant-forgive-me-maybe-jesus-will deal. This show is a soap opera with a laugh track. Will I watch it again?...as long as I'm staying up until 3 am.

Review #6: my beer belly

First of all the picture is NOT me!! I got it from Austrailia's ABC site. But it may as well be. I look almost exactly like that, but I'm harier. As I said before, I had recently lost ten pounds. I weighed myself tonight and I have gained six of them back. I don't care if I'm fat, I just wish it would distribute itself more throughout my body. As far as beer bellies go, this one is an emerging star.

Review # 5: Imitation crab

Here's the problem with this review : I'm not sure what REAL crab tastes like. But I've had crab cakes, the kind in fried wanton, and other brands of imitation crab. So i'm an expert now. Anyway, the main fish substance in imitaion crab is pollock, wich I'm sure is some bottom feeding shit-eater. oh, well, I like pork products and that can't be much better. There is also crab flavoring, artificial colors and eggs. There are more ingredients, but I don't care about that. The cost of this sample of fake crab was $8.99/lb, but at .27 lbs I paid less than $3. I got it at Ken's market in Queen Anne. If you know me, you know why. The kind I got before was from Safeway and was aquired on usually ony drunken or stoned nights, so I have little recolection of the ingredients or price, but it must have been cheap if KC and I were eating it. As you may have guessed, the faux crab I got tonight was like any other faux crab I've had. It was flaky, it had this smooth buttery tase to it, it only tases good on a wheat thin...but the texture unfortunatley was more...textured. It was rougher. There's something bittersweet about eating imitation crab by itself..it's kinda good. It's kinda gross. Sadly, this enhanced texture intensified the gross part a little (intensified a little?). Would I buy it again...Not to like, impress a date or anything, but like I said...drunken stoned nights.

Review # 4: Lagunitas Imperial Red Ale

22 oz. bottle, 7.9% abv Dark Red, hoppy,sweet, and sharp. I'd but it again if I was going to a party at the home of someone I knew if I knew there'd be a lot of people there I didn't know. I guess that's the recomended occasion, but there are many options in that instance.

Review#3: Sierra Nevada's Bigfoot barley-wine-style beer

This beer is expensive, first of all. It goes at my work for about $10 a six-pack. I paid $1.99 for the one bottle. Like I said in my last beer thing "If I know what hoppy means..." this beer is hoppy on ten. As the aftertase faded, I swore I could taste foliage. It's strong: 9.6%. I would but it again, but not very often.

Review#2:Network-station phone sex ads

I can't go into it right now, but they get, like, ten stars. Now an infomercial about depression is on...stay tuned....

Review #1: New Belgum 1554(beer)

I am currently 1/2 way through my second bottle of "1554 Brussels style black ale". The copy on the bottle says: "certainly black with taosted maltiness, this ale is not a stout or porter. Rather this dark's secret to quaffability lies in it's bright acidity from the yeast and alluring spicy undertones" I only recently stopped drinking beer just to drink, and started tasting it. So i'll do my best. Bright acidity...check. spicy undertones...check. I must say the beer is very tasty. I'm not sure if I know exactly what "hoppy" means, but if im right, it's not very. It goes down smooth, but its kind of sweet. The sweetness worries me only because I've had New Belgum's Bier(Beir?) de Mars which was also tasy and sweet, but the sweetness leads to headachness. We'll see how that pans out, but as it stands I would buy this beer again. Should I have some sort of point system or scale? thumbs up, thumbs down? I don't know yet.

A change of direction

I'm not entirley sure where this idea originated, but it's the kind of thing that could be successful if not for my infinite lazyness. Here's the idea: I review everything. I originally thought of it as a print zine, but since I'm sitting here with this blog doing nothing, I think I'll try my hand at the reviewing thing now. There's really no limit to WHAT I can review, but I thought of one...No people. I won't review people. I only thought of that because a friend of mine said "Don't review me..." I wouldn't, but for future reference, it's a good rule. So enough, let me get on with it....

Actually...

I'm not going to finish that last post because the moment's gone and I no longer care about it.

Notes on a night out

A few nights ago, Friday I think,...that would be the 10th, I went with my friend Jake to meet our friend Garrett downtown before we went to a show of a girl Jake knew. I'm not sure how he met her, but I know that they are Myspace friends (note the mention of myspace. It comes up a few times). We met at a mexican food restaurant on the corner of 2nd and Bell called Mama's Mexican Kitchen. The food was good, moderatley priced, and the service was excellent.l Luckily Jake and I arrived just before a big rush and got to sit without waiting. After waiting for Garrett for a while we dicided to order without him. It was commented that this would cause him to arrive, and when the very personable server took our order, she said the same thing. Lo and behold...minutes later Garrett arrived. The server was kind enough to get his order in with ours. I don't remember what we talked about. I was eating. I do remember that the bill was $33.33. I thought that seemed interesting as there were three of us, but to my suprise Garrett seemed to think nothing of it. I don't remember the breakdown of the bill, but I bet his lack of interest in such an inane coincidence was because his meal was the cheapest (i dont know if thats true) and he didn't like the idea of the bill being split equally three ways (I love you, Garrett). One thing I do remember about this night, and I suppose that includes the dinner conversation, was the number of times certain words and phrases came up that I would never expect to hear from either myself or Jake. Myspace (see?), blogging, file sharing, all these internet terms. I wasn't suprised to hear them from Garret at all, as he's been in the know for a while now. For me, on the other hand, it's fairly new. As for Jake, I would never expect to hear him talk about these things, but he always suprises me. It makes sense, however, because it seems he tends to adapt well to new resources such as the internet. We proceeded to go to the show. We paid $5 at the door and got a stamp on our right inside wrist, as seems to be the custom at "the door" wherever you go. There is very little for me to say about the actual show. I'm not very good at reviewing music, I'm not sure why. It may have something to do with a lack of adjectives or knowledge of musicians in general. I don't know music, but I know what I like. I like the music I heared that night, but I wouldn't buy an album...or pay to see another show. Anyway, I realised that I don't like Heinekin. I'm tired, I'll finish this later.

Everything's coming up Phil!

Yesterday I weighed myself. I don't do this very often, because it's always the same, 180, but once in a while I'm curious. Turns out since last I weighed myself I somehow lost ten pounds! woo-hoo! I don't mind being fat, but being skinny is better. When I got home from work I found that my friend Bethany had given me a steak from her work. She owed me food for giving her a ride to the airport a while ago. I'm a fan of the barter system. I seasoned it and cooked it up today. It was GREAT! Back in September I sent a money order for $189 to the Arcata police department for some parking tickets. I wrote down which citations they were for. They sent it back, saying I put down the wrong citation numbers. So I said fuck it, cashed the MO and forgot about it. Recently they sent a letter to my mother saying something about how I still owed and I would owe more if blah blah blah. So I bit the bullet and sent them a money order for $200 asking if I owed more and even told them to keep the change if there was any. Jump forward to today. I checked my mail and there was an envelope from Arcata. "oh, no," I thought. I opened it and the firts thing I saw was "Warning". That warning, however, was to bank tellers, telling them not to cash the check if they didn't see a watermark. It was a check! For $79!!! Apparently I only owed them $121. This was perfect timing as I only had $20 cash to my name and payday is a week away. Eveything's coming up PHIL!

The state I am in

As I said, I just got online yesterday, technicaly two days ago. Here's what led up to that. I purchased a computer from a coworker about a month ago, which came with a wireless adapter. The antenna wasnt able to pick up any signal. He got me a better one. I could pick up networks, but was unable to connect. I tried moving the computer all over my place trying to get a better signal. nothing was working. I even looked up how to make an antenna out of a Pringles can(never tried it, though). The other day, on a whim, I moved it to a spot I hadtried before. At first nothing, then late that night I managed to get online just long enough to open the google web page. that was it. The next day I was able to achieve full connectivity. The rest is history. Now, the computers on the floor, and the antenna is on a window sill. In order to get the signal, the window has to be open. This is unfortunate due to the cold winter weather,. It has been raining this whole time, and I have to keep wiping the rain water off of the antenna. I couldn't be happier.

I am (not) afraid

I recently got back on the Internet (yesterday), and in an effort to get me back in the swing of things, my friend Garret told be I should get a blog. I told him I didn't like to commit to anything especially in writing for fear of later, if my views were to change, being called a liar or a hypocrite. Garret said "Whatever, we're all hypocrites." That got me to thinking, and I decided that it was okay to go back on my opinions and views for one very good reason: The fluidity of life. I look around me and everything is constantly changing. Not in a forward, progressive way...But needlessly and superfluously. Food products always say "Great New Look! Same Great Taste!" Doritos "Nacho Cheesier" and "Cooler Ranch" flavors have now been toned down to just "Nacho Cheese" and "Cool Ranch" for no real reason. The comic books I read and love are always changing...The entire Marvel universe just went through some "House of M" bullshit involving a mutant utopia, Spiderman's costume has recently changed YET AGAIN, and the DC universe, after being changed in the 80's with the Ifinity Crisis storyline, is going to change again with the "Identity Crisis" storyline. Technology is always changing, not so much for the better, but just allowing people to carry more stupid gadgets on their person, ie. ipods and those cell phone ear things (bluetooth?) that make people look like borgs. So why can't my veiws, which have no great impact on the world or even my own life, change whenever the hell I feel like it? So If I ever say anything that I contradict or someone convinces me I'm wrong and I shift view points, there is one reason I will give that cannot be argued: The fluidity of life.