Testing...

Testing...
Originally uploaded by bugbiteme

1.2.3.

I've been meaning to post more candid shots from Mazatlan, but for some reason I keep leaving my phone back in the room. Just close your eyes and visualize me, constantly shirtless, in speedos, wearing a big straw hat and my trade-mark aviator shades, guzzeling mass quantities of Patron at Senior Frogs while house music  constantly thumps in the background, along with the rising chants of "go go go" from a crowd as I down a beer-bong after beer-bong of Pacifico in record time. I'll visualize you, bored at work, checking Facebook, waiting for the clock to hit 5 so you can go home and watch some Television.

Blog Blog Get-a-blog I Got a Blog OOOweeeeOOO-OOOOOO!

I've been so obsessed with the Beach Boys lately. It's been ridiculous.

"Beach Boys? HUH?"

That's usually the response I get when I bring this up. It's also the response I used to give. I never even bothered to listen to Pet Sounds when it got popular again in the late 90's or gave Brian Wilson's SMiLE a chance when he finally finished it in 2004, since I figure the Beach Boys would always be a cliché. I don't really regret waiting so long to get into my Beach Boys phase, since I have always been into uncovering old gems when current music gets boring, revisiting the past, making old bands and music trends part of my foundation. It was only a matter of time before Beach Boys came into the mix.

So many people blow them off, since they were never perceived to be much more than a "fun in the sun with pretty girls in your car on your surfboard" kind of band, only to be knocked out of relevance by the British Invasion of the mid 60's. But yes, I did love "Surfin' USA" and "California Girls" when I was a kid. What child with baby-boomer parents from LA/OC didn't?

Anyhow, the Beach Boys are blowing my mind right now. It all started when Baby Grand was invited to play a Beach Boys tribute show at Old Ironsides (which will be happening on June 20th, btw). When trying to decide what songs to cover, I let the band know that I really didn't care what songs we did, but I had one request, which was to do the unreleased version of Fallin' in Love (Lady). I originally discovered the song a few years ago when listening to my iPod on shuffle and a version of the song came on. It was a cover done by Sambassadeur and it's great. I thought it was an original, but I later found out it was a cover of a song by Dennis Wilson. I later found the unreleased Beach Boys version of the song and it rocks....especially to a sappy guy like me. Anyhow, we all got together one Sunday afternoon and started playing each other possible songs to cover. The rest of my band mates were playing all these beach Boys tunes that I had never even heard before that were blowing my mind. Cory burned a DVD of most of the Beach Boys catalog for me which sent me off the deep end (the DVD is missing MIU Album and L.A...CORY!!!). I've been trying to spend a week or two on each album. I also checked out The Dennis Wilson biography from the library which has caused me to never look at the Beach Boys the same again.

I can't get enough right now! It's driving Niki crazy.

Here are some of my favorite tracks that are in heavy rotation at the moment:






This one is really moody, but I love it:


This will lift you up after the last one:

First Real Post in Like 2 Flippin' Years (or) How Facebook Killed the Blogger in me

(update** fixed some formatting issues)

Seriously, WTF happened?

One day I'm going on and on about how much fun I had trying delicious brew and food at the Sierra Nevada brewery, next thing you know...poof... nuthin'.

I've come to realized that Facebook is to blame and I apologize. I fought off the urge to sign up for years, worrying about my privacy, or not wanting to plague the world with vague snippets of my life that come into my head throughout the day:

Leon is what a ho hum day *sigh*

Oh yeah? Could you please elaborate? If not, why the fuck did you post that to begin with?

After enough poking and prodding from some friends who use Facebook, I finally caved in, and for the last two years I've been lurking, liking, being vague, following, but really not saying much. It was cool with a few friends, but now I got family, coworkers and long lost high school acquaintances in my list of "friends" and FB is beginning to creep me out. I've even had weird anxiety dreams about it.

I find that I can easily offend people even more so on Facebook than here with my reactionary quips. Here I can at least explain myself and make a funny story out of it. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll be won over in the end...most of the time.

Facebook does come in handy at times, for instance, the Mrs and I are planning a weekend getaway that involves visiting one of my favorite breweries in Santa Rosa. Besides drinking cold frosty brew, I wanted to see if the area had more to offer. I hadn't a clue. All I had to do was post "what is there to do in Santa Rosa?" on my status, and before I knew it, blam, I had my whole weekend planned out for me thanks to a handful of helpful individuals: some friends, some acquaintance as well as some people who I haven't talked to in person for 10 plus years who I probably wouldn't say much to if I actually did see them in person. It was great!

So anyhow, time to dust off the ol' keyboard and get back at the ol' blog. I hope all three or four of you will enjoy it...and please...send all hate mail to my actuall email account, not through Facebook. Thanks.

Anyone out there?!?!?!?!



Is anyone watching? Should I revive this blog?

Sierra Nevada Brewery



This Sunday Niki and I drove all the way up to Chico to finally check out the legendary Sierra Nevada brewery in person





We showed up way early before the tour, so we decided to taste the taps...all 16 of them!





Sierra Nevada sells around 6 different beers in stores (including seasonals), but they brew about 16 total at any given time that you can sample all at once in their taproom. The glasses were way too small, making it hard for the beer to stay cold. I found out that the flagship Pale Ale is made slightly different between the bottled and the on-tap version. Both versions are included in the sampler.





We settled on the Ruthless Weiss Beer, which was a delicious "Begian white" style ale.

One thing I found out during the tour is that all of the Sierra Nevada bottled beers are bottle-conditioned (naturally fermented)!

Super good latkes
Originally uploaded by bugbiteme

This is the second year I've made these, and they are a hit. I may try to make a vegan version again this week. The above latkes are the real deal though!

INGREDIENTS

* 2 cups potato, cubed
* 3 smaller russet potatoes, peeled and shredded
* 1 onion, shredded
* 2 eggs
* 3 tablespoons matzo meal
* 1 teaspoon kosher salt
* 6 tablespoons vegetable oil


DIRECTIONS

1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add potatoes and cook until tender but still firm, about 15 minutes. Drain, cool and mash.
2. In a medium bowl, mix shredded Yukon Gold potatoes, mashed potatoes and onion. Add in eggs, matzo meal and salt; mix well.
3. Feel consistency of the dough; mixture should hold together without being sticky. If it sticks to your hands, add more matzo meal until dough is no longer sticky.
4. In a large skillet over medium heat, warm enough oil or butter or margarine to cover 1/4 inch of the skillet.
5. When hot, drop mixture by heaping tablespoon to oil; flatten with a spatula and cook on both sides until golden brown. Serve.

Peace + Love...all of the above





Happy Hanukkah!

Baby Grand on KXJZ (90.9) today at 2pm PST



Well, Gerri from Baby Grand anyway.
link to KXJZ

Tight!!!

Beer



Since I used to rant and rave about Belgium beers a while ago, I have been pigeonholed as the Belgium beer guy, but let it be known, I have moved on.

The main reason I got into Belgium ale was because it was so different and had interesting flavors. Just like when I was into English ales. Now I can hardly stand either. (When is Soul Jazz Records going to put that Belgian Funk compilation out?)

Traveling abroad, you find that people in other countries like the beer that is locally brewed, and you get funny looks when you try to be the International Douche Bag Bank of Beer Knowledge Expertise Specialist Pro know-it-all.

I've gone to Germany twice now, and as generic as it may seem, I like German beer the best when it comes to imported brew. The best brand is Hacker-Pschorr, and every variety I've tasted by them is really fresh and good... The Bon Lair carries Hacker-Pschorr during Oktoberfest season and I highly recommend getting some when they have it. I have even better news though... Sacramento's #1 beer store (the A&P) carries a bunch of Hacker-Pschorr varieties year-round!

For my "local" beer, I really enjoy a California/American brewed IPA. Skip the Sierra Nevada PA if you can help it. Laguinita's is the next step up, but can be inconsistent (sometimes great or not). Racer 5 IPA has the lamest label, but is probably one of the best I've had in a bottle. Brew-It-Up's Captain Ron's IPA is delish, but can give you a massive headache the next day. A good Colorado brewed IPA is by the Flying Dog Brewing Company.

Wasps are Dicks



For the past few weeks I have been seeing the occasional wasp floating about in my back yard. I figured they are part of life, and just happen to be passing through, hanging out in my lush back yard, because, well, it's just kinda nice to hang out back there.

Yesterday when I got home from work, Niki informed me that she found a wasp nest under one of the rails on our back porch. Holy crap dude! She was actually chased down by a few. Luckily I was already equipped with a can of Raid wasp killa spray, so I went into action, thirsty for wasp blood.

"I see you fuckers....BLAM!!!!"

One shot fired... I could see the wasps were pissed, yet they didn't know what the fuck just happened, so I went inside for a bit to let the mass dying commence while I sipped on a cool, refreshing ice-water. I didn't want any of those dudes trying to retaliate on my ass.

About ten minutes later I went out to check on the damage, and there was a pile of wasps and wasp pupa on the porch right below where I had sprayed. They all looked pathetic, gasping for their last breath. I started feeling bad for what I had done, but then I reminded myself that wasps are dicks.

Feeling Nostalgic




The music was way better, the food tasted better, people were nicer to each other while meadowlarks fluttered about...or something, right?

(forget the fact that I was stressed out over money all the time, my family was a bit f-ed up, the constant anguish over females caused by hormones, hating school, etc...I just block that stuff out)

Lately though, I've been feeling nostalgia for some of the music I listened to as a kid throughout my teens. That was pretty much all I had (well, at the time, that was all I thought I had). What triggered all of this nostalgia? Well, recently I stumbled upon this amazing torrent which pretty much covers every song I liked during that time period.

After making a "best of" comp of all these songs and feeling more and more nostalgia (sorry, I lost my thesaurus), I decided to finally read one of those 33 1/3 books about one of my favorite albums of all time, which is A Tribe Called Quest's "People's Instinctive Travels And the Paths of Rhythm"....terrible title, but fitting for that time, and a terrible book by the way, well not that bad. I had gotten the book a while ago and it has been gathering dust ever since, but now I felt like it was the right time to read it. I had never read any books from that series before, and I was hoping for some insight on the writing and recording process of the album more than anything else, but the book is more about one guy's trip down memory lane, when he was a teenager, and music was better, food tasted better..etc.. so this book doesn't really cover the technical aspects of the album, it is a book about nostalgia.

The book is more or less a shrine to the album, digging back to when the author was an awkward teenager with a fucked up home-life, and music was all he had..etc... and even digs back to his teenage journal when he wrote about listening to the album for the first time. Talk about a trip down memory lane...did it really come out 18+ years ago?!?!?!

Shheeesh I'm getting old...but thank god (or whoever) that I'm no longer a teenager.

heckafun



Last night's English Singles/June Brides/Baby Grand show was probably the most fun I've had at a show in a long time.

English singles are the best band in Sac, and definitely my favorite Smiller inception since Nar.

Sacramento got props for being better than Portland by the touring act...

I got to play with the June Brides!

Baby Grand REMIXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX!!!!!

June Brides in July!




OK...if you go to one Baby Grand show this summer...this is the one to go to!


please please please please......

:)

Talk about a top notch show

It's Official



By decree of "Sacramento's Pizza and Beer Expert", I, Mr. Leeeeeeeeeeeen Peon, do hereby, in the most solemn manner, declare that Zelda's Pizza is better than Chicago Fire Pizza. Any other claims and/or charges to state otherwise are considered false, and most likely made by consumers of carpet-cheese pizza, and fans of Pizza Hut (aka: people who's opinion on food does not contain any credibility)

Last night I finally did a direct comparison between the two pizza establishments and ordered what Niki and I commonly refer to as the "Trifecta" or "Tri-Force" (mush.ol.garl). We order it just about every time we go to Zelda's, but this time we decided to go with Chicago Fire Pizza. I get hungry just thinking about it. It was good, but not as good as Zelda's. The crust wasn't as flaky, and I could not distinguish any garlic added from what was already included in the sauce. I think Zelda's sauce is a bit better (even though it can be inconsistent), and Chicago Fire doesn't have the 4 dollar pitchers of cheap, summer-time beer.

Don't get me wrong. I love Chicago Fire's stuffed and thin crust pizza, but I consider them entirely different entities than deep dish. CFP is also good in that they take credit cards.

I know some of you will disagree. Those of you who do, please refer to the first paragraph of this posting.

Blogging from my iPod

In Las Vegas

Working at a conference

Dressed like a dweeb

(not a haiku)

I Can't Drive/Pay....FIFTYFIIIIIIIIIIIVE!!!!

So after filling up my gas tank last time for $55, I decided to try something new....

Drive the speed limit

First of all, I was amazed at how fast people drive on the freeway. I did my best to stay out of people's way, but even in th far-right lane people would constantly tailgate.

The 'ol "spray-tailgater-with-windshield-wiper-fluid" trick seemed to get them to back off. All of this spraying made me think of my current favorite Nintendo game.

Second thing... I actually got wayyyyyyy better gas mileage. I usually never go less than 80 mph on the freeway, so going the speed-limit actually made a big impact on my mpg. I usually get 335-345 miles on a tank of gas, driving like grandma got me 370 miles!

That adds up!

Culinary Genius pt2: Easter Ice Cream

Cream Eggs

Naked

Vanilla ice cream ingredients

Borrow an ice cream maker from one of your friends

Make vanilla ice cream

+ Cream Eggs

mix

Let everything set

Eat!!!

The Case of the Non-disappearing Armoire
or
Is the Sacramento Tree Foundation Wasting Money?
or
Just Take the Damn Armoire Already!!!



The armoire Niki and I sold on craigslist is no where near as nice as the armoire depicted in the picture above, however, it wasn't ugly, just a bit unstable with a couple minor dings, yet still functional. All information was disclosed in the craigslist posting.

Niki handled listing it and dealing with potential customers, so I'm sure she could give a better account than I, but seriously, what is wrong with people?

caller number 1: "I see you are listing the armoire for $50. How about I give you $30 for it...oh and by the way... I don't have a truck, so you need to deliver it to me"

No thanks...NEXT!

caller number 2: "I'll take it. I'll be by Sunday at 1"

1 pm rolls around, dude never comes by...

caller number 2: "Sorry I couldn't make it, I'll come by Monday at 5 to get it"

OK...

5 pm comes and goes, but the armoire stays.

5:30 caller emails us via his blackberry

"Sorry. I couldn't find your place. I need to pick up my wife from work but I'll be by at 6:30"

OK. (are you serious?)...

6:30

me to Niki: "Where is this guy?"

Niki: "Let me call him"

Niki calls dude

caller number 2: "I've been driving all over RIO LINDA and I can't find your place!"



That's because you are in Rio Linda dumb-ass. Thanks but no thanks. Next!

caller number 3: "Can I come by tonight?"

Sure

(caller arrives...with a compact car)

"Ooooh. I'll take it! I'll be by tomorrow with my boyfriend's truck to pick it up"

We never hear from her again.

At least two more people email Niki and ask if we still have the armoire.

"Yes we do! Do you want it?"

no response...

Finally a serious buyer representing the Sacramento Tree Foundation comes to take a look at the armoire. Maybe for their office or something.


"Here is $50 in cash. We'll take it, but we will have to pick it up tomorrow"

...It's been sitting in our house for a week now...

At least we have the money.

sigh

***Update***

They finally came and got it!

Excess Ain't Rebellion...



For the past 5 years my 3rd generation iPod (pictured on the left) has been by my side through thick and thin. Once I started running distances longer than 4 miles I decided needed to bring something to listen to, but I soon realized the clunky guy was too big to bring along, but I definitely needed something too keep my mind off of the monotony that comes along with running laps and laps around the park. I asked Santa for an iPod shuffle, and I got one! It's the greatest for runs or short walks around town (and yard-work). The only thing I hate about it is that you can't see what you are listening to, and if you are listening to a longer pod-cast and accidentally skip to the next track, it's a pain to get back to where you left off without intervention from the computer and iTunes.

Then along came by birthday, and my loving wife got me the iPod touch. It's just like the iPhone, without the phone. As soon as I got it out of the box, I saw that look of regret in Niki's eyes (the same look she gave me after getting me a ps2 for Christmas a few year back). It instantly brought out the inner geek from within. Besides listening to music, and watching movies, and looking at pictures, and surfing the net, and checking email (via wifi) I had to find out what this thing could do ;)

So far I've been finding all kinds of applications that can do some amazing things. I love it. The only thing I hate about it is that it's so fragile, and after you've blown your wad of cash buying the dang thing, you spew another load of cash on products designed to prevent it from getting scratched and dinged.

(now back to ripping all my Curb Your Enthusiasm DVDs to iTunes)