Tag: television

Advent Beer #21: Perlenzauber IPA by Privatbrauerei H. Egerer

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Today, I have good news and I have bad news.

The good news is that I was feeling like I was using my Sweetwater pint glasses too frequently, and for my own satisfaction of variety, I wanted to mix things up.  I have a bunch of other glasses in another cabinet, so I went to swap out some of the Sweetwater pints that I’ve felt were being repeated too much.  In doing so, I unearthed the absolute best, most appropriate glass that I should have been using throughout this entire journey, but simply neglected to remember that I had it.

This baby das boot easily holds 16 ounces, which makes it perfect in the sense that I can pour each day’s entire can into it without having to reload later on.  Plus it has that whole German tradition of drinking out of a boot thing going on, which is why this would’ve been perfect had I been using it from the start, but I just forgot about it.  At least for the final four days, I can make sure to be drinking my German biers from my German boot.

The bad news is that on the day in which I can start using my boot, the beer of the day is an IPA.  After twenty days, I was beginning to wonder if Deutschland even did IPAs since I hadn’t encountered any after this long, and I was quite satisfied with that assessment too.  Unfortunately, like a turd in the pool, an IPA decided to float to the surface, on day #21.

In addition, it’s also another encore from a particular brewer, since beer #9 was also from the same company, as indicative of the can design featuring an image of a woman presumably drowning outside of a porthole because I can’t think of any other scenario where another human being would be visible outside of a porthole, unless they were scuba diving or drowning, and the woman isn’t wearing any scuba gear nor does she have a fin which would make her an underwater breathing mermaid.

But yeah, it’s an IPA, and I winced like OJ Simpson in court when I discovered this.  Regardless, I made it this far drinking every drop of every beer, and there’s no point in throwing in the towel now, even if there was a shitty IPA in my path.  I poured it into my boot, disappointed that this would be the first thing to use my boot on, but hoping that the Germans do an IPA better than all the shitty ‘Murican hipsters who release a litany of shitty signature IPAs.

To the credit of Perlenzauber, or whatever the brewery is called, as far as IPAs go, this wasn’t turrible.  It actually had a fairly decent initial flavor, that staved off the vast majority of the bitter piss flavor at the end of most other IPAs, and I actually found it to be remotely drinkable as far as IPAs were concerned.  That is, as long as the beer were at its coldest.  As the time clicked away as mythical wife and I were catching up on The Mandalorian, as the beer got warmer, the more it turned back into IPA piss water, and by the time I got to the bottom of the boot, and the bubble had popped, I was struggling to finish it, and just kind of bottoms upped it, just to finish the job.

In spite of the not-quite negative first impressions, it’s still an IPA at the end of the day, and I simply don’t favor them.  The fact that it’s not dead last is a credit to the initial flavor notes that I did like, and makes me really try and remember just how bad the three underneath it really were to have been denigrated as worse than an IPA.

The funniest thing to me is that in spite of the fact that I didn’t hate this completely, the snobs at BeerAdvocate apparently have hated the shit out of this beer, in as equally new to them taste tests.  Clearly, my rubric for beer preferences are way off of the masses on the internet, but whatever.

Hopefully, tomorrow is back to another lager, or better yet another dunkel to pour into my boot, because today really was kind of a mulligan, and I’m hoping that the final three beers will be some good ones to close out this magical boozy journey with.

Current Rankings:

  1. Jubilation Suds (#18)
  2. Bären Weisse (#16)
  3. First Coral (#2)
  4. Kirta (#5)
  5. Turbo Prop (#6)
  6. Schwarze Tinte (#13)
  7. Perlenzauber (#9)
  8. Loncium Vienna Style Lager (#12)
  9. Märzenbier (#20)
  10. Jubiläumsbier 333 (#7)
  11. Zwönitzer Steinbier (#4)
  12. Alpen Stoff (#17)
  13. Erl Hell (#19)
  14. Grandl (#11)
  15. Altbairisch Hell (#15)
  16. Hell (#1)
  17. Tannen Hell (#8)
  18. Perlenzauber IPA (#21)
  19. Tradition (#10)
  20. Hallertauer Hopfen-Cuvee (#14)
  21. Käuzle (#3)

Advent Beer #2: Fürst Carl by Schlossbrauerei Ellingen

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I don’t really care how it’s actually pronounced in Deutsch, it’s “First Carl” as far as I’m concerned.  Which then makes me think about Carl from The Walking Dead and how Rick always called him “Coral” because his mouth was trying so hard to overcompensate for his cockney accent and go full Georgia southern instead.  So First Coral this was.

It’s called a kellerbier, which I don’t really know what that actually means, but when I visited Germany, mythical then-gf and I went to a few wine kellers, which I suppose is the English equivalent to “cellar” so if I had to make some sort of assumption First Coral is what the Germans would call a celler beer.

Whatever though, to cut to the chase, this was a very pleasant beer.  Definitely better than the one from yesterday, and good to know that the too-short trend after just two days is that things are going upwards in terms of quality.  A nice amber color, pleasant aroma, and a full flavor that didn’t feel as abrupt as the one from yesterday, nor does it have too much of a powerful aftertaste that I have to stop for a full minute before I take the next pull, so I can enjoy every gulp of it.

Also, a nice spicy flavor if that’s a description worth sharing.

I also just so happened to be having a slice of leftover pumpkin pie from Thanksgiving, and it just so perfectly paired up with First Coral, because of their common general spiciness about them.  Maybe that’s a little bit of a stretch just so I could use the words First Coral again, but no really, this actually did go pleasantly well with pumpkin pie.

Overall First Coral was pretty good, and definitely keeps me motivated to keep writing about beer like the who-gives-a-fuck novice to the scene that knows what he likes and isn’t all about caring about the granular ratings people like the ones on Untappd give them.

Why are people still inspired by Anthony Bourdain?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Every now and then while scrolling through theFacebook, I occasionally get a glimpse of someone posting some picture of Anthony Bourdain with some evocative quote he said at some point during his living life, probably from one of the television shows he hosted throughout his career.  Don’t get me wrong, a lot of the things he was paid to say on television were pretty good things and sounded pretty inspirational, but when the day is over, what perplexes me is why people hold him in such high regard still – last time I checked, the guy committed suicide; I’m not entirely sure that I’d want to take any sort of influence from him anymore.

If it’s something I haven’t said before, I personally don’t really have a lot of respect or sympathy for those who kill themselves; sure, every case is different, any maybe some people have such miserable lives that suicide is somewhat of a mercy, but in the cases like celebrities like Anthony Bourdain, who had celebrity, had money, influence, access and basically the easy life, all I can really do is shake my head and tilt my head like a confused dog at notion that their lives were so difficult and nobody understood them that they somehow rationalize that the only logical thing for them to do next is to kill themselves.

That being said, I’m often wondering why people still hold him, or at least the shit he’s said to such reverence as it’s done to this day?  Not that I had a tremendous amount of respect for some celebrity whose shows I never watched, but I didn’t really have any opinions against the guy, until I heard that he hung himself.  All I really wanted to ask was if his life were really that tormented and baseless that the only possible next step was to leave it?

It then got me thinking about the finale to The Good Place.  And as much respect and admiration I have for Mike Schur for having created Parks & Recreation, I did enjoy The Good Place, but the ending really got me thinking about the metaphorical implications of the finale, especially in comparison to the topic before.  Requisite spoiler warning ahead:

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Writing when I don’t feel like writing

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

My motivation to write lately has been pretty nonexistent lately.  Not necessarily due to depression, quite the contrary, I’ve managed to pull my head out of the darkness a little bit better since my last brog therapy session.  It’s just that I just don’t really have any motivation to write.

I’m not finding a lot of things on the internet that are inspiring me to write, and maybe I’m still in a state of having writer’s rust when it comes to consistent brogging since I got my site back up months ago.  The point is, I just haven’t felt like I’ve had any real inspiration to write, and I don’t particularly feel motivated to write about things out of thin air either.

Regardless, the anxiety of letting too much time pass between posts is greater than the anxiety of feeling like I don’t have anything to write about, so in order to try and fill the airtime, I’m doing something I used to do whenever it was that I felt like I had nothing to write about: sit in front of a blank canvas and just start writing and see what words I can barf out.

Life lately has been somewhat steady over the last few weeks, especially since my mom is living with me for a few more weeks, and I have the peace of mind knowing that my daughter is in good hands while I hole up in my office for work; I’m actually utilizing my dedicated office space in order to take my job more seriously, as I probably really wasn’t during the first few weeks of quarantining, especially since I had a newborn baby that’s now a 7+ month old infant now.

My entire team has been told that we’re basically going to be working from home until at the very earliest, January 31st of 2021, and frankly even that seems like a dubious milestone in my opinion, because I think when the day is over, schools are what are going to be driving the decisions of all companies on whether or not they’re going to make employees come back to the offices or not.  Child care is low-key the main thing that is going to determine whether or not businesses large or small will be going back to offices any time soon, and even that, is going to be determined by the availability of a vaccine, since ‘Muricans can’t stop being so selfish for two months to effectively quarantine and let coronavirus burn out on its own.

But whatever, for better or worse, I’m working from home for the remainder of this year, and into the start of next.  Regardless of the state of work in that time, I can always have peace of mind knowing that I am always going to be home with my child, even if she will be with the nanny that we’re going to have to hire part-time in order to have eyes on her while I take my job seriously.

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Dexter took a hiatus about as long as the Ultimate Warrior did

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Mostly perplexed: Dexter television series set to return in a limited series capacity

My knee-jerk reaction to this was, whyyyyy???  But then I stop for a few minutes and think about how much I enjoyed the television series, in spite of its ups and downs throughout the season, the staunch survival through the writers’ strike(s), the awkward behind-the-scenes relationship between Deb and Dexter and their season six storyline, and of course, the head-scratching ending that spoiler alert it’s only been six years, resulted in a bearded lumberjack Dexter, in exile in the Pacific Northwest, and wonder… maybe?  Maybe this isn’t going to be one of those cringe-worthy reboots, like just about every old ABC network TGIF sitcom?

I mean, there’s a lot of terminology to define television shows these days.  Reboots, spin-offs, revivals, etc.  Even the linked article uses the term “revival” to define what the return of Dexter would be, and I guess among most available definitions, it’s the closest thing that might apply, but considering it’s more or less seemingly going to be a continuation of the series, it might as well just be a very late and overdue, ninth season.

Michael C. Hall will be reprising the role of Dexter Morgan, and frankly that’s all that there really needs to be.  I imagine there will be a bunch of flashback sequences to re-acquaint those who might have forgotten a lot of the past which might result in some paydays for the actors who played Debs, Angel, Masuoka, LaGuerta and hopefully Doakes.  And honestly, depending on how well the series performs, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to see an appearance by Yvonne Strahovski, which would probably kick the label of “limited” off of the series, and next thing we know, there are two additional seasons ordered by Showtime.

The thing is, the series didn’t really end in a manner in which it would be difficult to pick back up where it left off.  Considering the nature of the general concept, it doesn’t matter if it’s in Miami, Florida or Tukwila, Washington, there are murderers and psychopaths everywhere, and Dexter would never be at a loss for murderers for him to murder, righteously.

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It must be nice to be HBO

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Because it seems like just about everything they touch is basically gold.  And because all they do is produce gold, they can somehow manage to not just survive, but continue to thrive releasing programming in an episodic format, whereas just about everyone else out there is being forced to drop entire series at a time in order to make ends meet.

As much as I love binging shows on Netflix, their sheer thirst for churning out original and acquired content means that we’re long past the days of stalwart originals like House of Cards, Daredevil, and Stranger Things, and for as many good shows and series there are in Netflix’s libraries, there’s almost a growing equal amount of clunkers in the tank as well.

HBO is more like a baseball player that does nothing but hit home runs.  They curate vastly more than their television competitors, and they produce a vastly higher clip of quality programming than anyone else.  I’m currently watching Lovecraft Country and the show that follows it in The Vow, and both are excellent pieces of programming, and as much as I’d love to binge them, I can’t, because HBO is still operating in an antiquated format of releasing them weekly, an episode at a time, but there’s nothing I can do about it except feel owned and sit patiently for the next installment to come out.

I realize this has often been the case throughout the years, with most notably series like Game of Thrones and then Westworld coming out to capture the imagination and to anchor the entire network for years.  And by proxy of such hard carries, other shows get exposure, and I have fond recollections of watching captivating series like True Detective and The Night Of, both of which were strong series.  Shiny Objects was fantastic, and even the shit that are more comic and one-offs, like Class Action Park and 7 Days in Hell are gold as well.

And then, they get shit like the Watchmen television series, and it just further proves that HBO can seemingly do no wrong.  To pile onto all this winning, each stalwart series is always a vehicle towards the next one, with carefully curated advertising for the next hit series often placed as a preview going into the next episode of what you’re really wanting to watch.

The point of this whole post is really to just show a little bit of love towards HBO for constantly and consistently putting out top-notch content.  Both Lovecraft Country and The Vow have been excellent watches, and they’re one of the few indulgences mythical wife and I make time for every single week because 90 Day Fiance: The Other Way is on hiatus, there’s currently no guarantee that there’s even going to be a ninth season of My 600 Lb. Life. Frankly, in my little world HBO is the only network outside of the Discovery family of networks that remotely is worth existing.

Everyone on the internet is a Colin Robinson until proven otherwise

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Since my daughter’s been born, mythical wife and I haven’t watched a tremendous amount of television. I may have mentioned it before, but ultimately we’re hoping to avoid exposing our child to too much screen time until she’s around two years old, because we’d prefer to be parents who can stimulate their child’s brain without having to resort to plopping them in front of a television and hoping to let digital technology raise her. Needless to say, since having a kid, we’ve watched maybe a handful of things, mostly bullshit like 90 Day Fiancé or My 600 Lb. Life.

In addition to TLC’s greatest hits, one show in particular we’ve actually worked our way through has been FX’s What We Do In the Shadows, which has been great because the episodes are short, and the plot is funny in the mockumentary style of format. The cast is outstanding and the general plot is so ridiculous and quick-paced that it’s an easy show where we can watch one or two episodes, step away from viewing for a few days or a week, and then pick right back up without much difficulty.

After blowing through the two available seasons, I’d have to say that the one character that I enjoyed the most was Colin Robinson, the energy vampire. Mostly treated as a tertiary character, his whole spiel is that he’s not one of the traditional blood-sucking vampires, but rather one who feeds off of the energy of others, including the ability to drain from other vampires. He’s basically the troll among trolls in Nandor’s house, and in my opinion, he’s the funniest character among the entire cast.

There’s one episode in particular where he’s expanding on his powers to drain energy from victims by utilizing the internet, and then it occurred to me that Colin Robinson is basically the living embodiment of every internet troll on the planet. We re-watched the first episode recently, and there’s a line he mentions during the initial character introductions where “you probably know an energy vampire,” and then it hit me like a ton of bricks that he couldn’t be any more accurate that basically we all do.

Every anonymous internet troll, asshole whom you don’t know who chimes in on a social media conversation, is a Colin Robinson. An energy vampire who’s deliberately trying to deliberately trying to get under your skin and get you to tilt, so that they can drain your energy, even from afar. Once this connection is bought in, it’s actually quite amusing to envision the face on the other end of the keyboards in any sort of internet confrontation, probably looking like Colin Robinson, a bald, middle aged Dilbert looking guy. And as much as the Colin Robinsons probably got their rocks off on feeding on your energy, there’s something empowering to know that such a dorky looking dweeb is probably the one on the other end of the interwebs from any sort of online debate.