Drinking and Revenge

It's OVER

2008-11-24T16:35:00.000-08:00

i've been doing some soul-searching, and after 3 beers, clipping my nails, and little-to-no debate with myself have decided that i am no longer watching FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT HEROES.

i realize i liked it in the beginning (despite the fact i think ali larter looks like a fucking retard) and defended it to those who didn't like it, but i am taking it off my tivo season-pass.

i can no longer support such a god-awful show. amnesia to de-power a character? finding a reason in every season to take away powers from characters who are too strong (Peter and Hiro)? time-travel that makes the show so confusing i find myself yelling at the TV? Mohinder and Niki/Jessica/Tracy even still being on the show? FUCK!

TIME-TRAVEL!? why does anyone do anything at all on heroes? the show-runner tim kring is such an asshole that he ADMITS that he never read comics and only really likes origin stories. after that he just doesn't care about the plot. MOTHER FUCKER. if i met that douche i would punch him in the neck and tell him that it wasn't me, it was me from the past. good luck finding me from the past, i hear he went to the future and got fucking amnesia. see! i can write for heroes!

in conclusion, i don't expect i will give a shit when the show gets canceled. i will contemplate to myself at how much other stuff i will get done during the hour heroes is on. learning to knit? yes, please! choreographing a dance that will sweep the nation? look out, mtv! emailing pictures of me flipping off the camera to hayden panatierre? you betcha!

if any of you are watching heroes, please, please, think of how short hayden panatierre's limbs are (seriously, is she part midget? just her arms and legs?), it's very off-putting.

- Love, PJ

Why is this person still alive?

2008-06-04T21:22:00.000-07:00

My worst nightmare used to be being chased naked by those smart monkeys from the movie Congo, while a giant moving screen in front of me plays a non-stop video of my parents 69-ing.

Then I saw this picture:

She's famous for a song about rehab, has been in and out (mmm... in-n-out) of rehab and arrested multiple times, and has a douchebag husband/is a douchebag. And now when i see her face i think of her eating a live fish with her bare hands.

Quality Cinema

2008-04-05T15:29:00.000-07:00

Keeping the theme from my blast from the past kid-show exposé, i've decided to explore something near and dear to the many people who love their films from yesteryear: on-screen nudity for no other reason than to show some tits.

see something you like?

i started thinking about how these days, it is for some reason against the law for a movie to be rated R. it is rare now to see just a random set of boobs in a movie just because people want their movie to be rated PG-13 and "make shitloads of money" according to the people who finance them. just the other day i saw Walk Hard, and not knowing it was rated R, i was pleasantly surprised to see some boobs halfway through. yeah, boobs. remember those? movies used to include them.

now we have stars like Jessica Alba (what color is she? orange? off-tan?), whose contract stipulates no nudity so they turned her character in Sin City WHO IS A NAKED STRIPPER into some chick swinging a rope in her bathing suit. thanks Jessica Alba. I may sound extremely sexist right now, but really, show some spine, Young-Movie-Star-Women-of-Today.

you're not a stripper

Remember that scene in Demolition Man when Sly got a video-phone call from some naked chick for like .8 seconds? that is what makes Sylvester Stallone a visionary action film star and all around fantastic person.

Sign Me Up

2008-02-26T15:20:00.000-08:00

i was shopping online for some new holistic medicines and noticed a magazine section on Rite Aid's website. so i says to myself, i says "hey, i wonder if i can get my magazines cheaper from here. now i don't have to be pay full price for 'Modern Bride'..."

I have had an Electronic Gaming Monthly Subscription since 1994, but wanted to see how much it cost there. until I realized they obviously aren't selling new issues of the magazine. here's an excerpt of their synopsis located here:

"Electronic Gaming Monthly focuses on new electronic games for console video game units, including the Nintendo, Super NES, Sega Genesis, Sega 32x, Sony Play Station, and portable game systems such as the Nintendo GameBoy, Sega Game Gear."

i know Rite Aid got in trouble some years ago for selling a BUNCH of merchandise past their sell-by dates, and obviously this practice continues.

i know there's people like me who would be like, "sweet! the new mortal kombat game is out on the Super Nintendo!"

(Wa-Wa-Wild and Crazy) Kids TV

2008-02-10T17:27:00.000-08:00

hey. remember when TV was practically MADE for children in the 80's and 90's? i sure do. Saturday morning was FULL of good stuff (Sonic the Hedgehog sticks out in my mind, along with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and other shows for the awesome kid with discerning taste). i won't talk everything, and i know GI Joe, He-Man, Transformers, and the Thundercats are iconic TV, but there was so much more on than just the obvious stuff. also, i don't want to write a 30,000 word essay on this.

Nickelodeon had too many shows to even mention all of them in any sort of order. So out of order, a list of Nick shows everyone who was allowed to watch TV was tuned into: Salute Your Shorts (it's, 'i hope we'll never part!'), Ren and Stimpy (watch the Adult Party stuff), Rugrats (the early years), My Brother and Me (Gooooo Punch!), Doug (dooo do-dooo do-do-do-dooo do-dooo do-do), Clarissa Explains It All (wayyy cooool), Are You Afraid of the Dark? (only when i watched that show by myself), and an even greater variety of game shows. Guts (fucking HILARIOUS to watch now, you know who you are), What Would You Do? (wipe a booger on Mark Summers' face, that's what), Wild and Crazy Kids (dizzy home run derby), and of course the iconic, slimy Double Dare (the question is: what wouldn't Marc Summers do?).

With this amount of quality on just one network (SNICK in particular being a must watch on Saturday nights) you would think that, 10-20 years later, there should be a shitload of GREAT shows for kids that appeal to adults that grew up watching fun programming that summed up what it was like to be a kid that had to wear Strike 4 shirts and wanted BK Ratch-Tech shoes that every retard that could reach into a giant nose to pull out a flag would win.

i forgot to mention how great Nick Arcade is to watch as a man who grew up playing those video games way better than a duo that consists of some guy named Chester who tucks his shirt into his elastic shorts and his partner Bethany who's disappointed the host isn't the dreamy JD Roth.

Even the shows on network TV were mostly good. Land of the Lost, Fudge, Looney Tunes, The Tick, and Eek! the Cat/Terrible Thunder Lizards were a good reason to wake up early. there were some clunkers (I'm looking at you, Saved By the Bell: the New Class), but it was a safe bet that while you ate your Nintendo cereal that you were going to be entertained between 6am and noonish.

There was a major factor shared between most of the great cartoons of the 80's/90's, and that is they were produced by DiC entertainment (click for a list of their shows). remember the end of many of the shows back then when there was that little musical cue and the little girl's voice saying "Deek"? Very important seeing as the company hasn't produced many shows in the last decade.

the point of this rambling blog that i haven't posted in for a month (thought i forgot about it, didn'tcha?) is that today (as in the '00s) i'm either not up on my kid's TV culture, which is most likely the case, or there is seriously very little quality programming for the over-protected kids of today. Who the FUCK cares about Hannah Montana? Why do people think High School Musical has remotely good music? what the shit is going on?

*SIDE NOTE: the only good shows that are new are either stolen from Japan (as always), or are Spongebob Squarepants, which delightfully keeps up the tone of Rocko's Modern Life. And I will admit to loving the hell out of Even Stevens on the Disney Channel. Great writing made that a great program. END SIDE NOTE*

but then, i look at most of the stuff that was good to me when i was a kid, and see that the only reason i smile when i see an old episode of something is that those shows were on when we had ZERO fucking responsiblity and the only worry in life was if i was going to get my name on the board in class (ms. pedroza didn't like kids laughing at her kidney problems). it makes me sad to think that in 15 years when those kids who like Zoey 101 (er, or whatever it's called...) are old enough to go to their 10 year reunion, they'll be talking about the awesome new Michael Bay-directed live-action version of The Fairly Oddparents.

however, if we take it upon ourselves to save those kids future embarrassment and beatings (from me), the future looks bright. look for episodes of your favorite shows and give them to your brothers or cousins or nephews or even sisters, girl-cousins, and nieces. pass down the greatness of worthwhile television to those forced to watch the fucking Cheetah Girls. at least My Little Pony had good life lessons. who the shit wants to look like Raven-Symoné? probably not even Raven wants to look like Raven.

I would like to hear all of your opinions on this matter, seeing as the fate of our younger generation is at stake.

it really is

in beer news, i found out that Raley's sells Pabst Blue Ribbon Light in cool redesigned cans, so now i can enjoy delicious low-calorie brew and still look like a cheap-ass in the process! go out and try the pabst brand. i am basically going to keep telling you to drink it until Pabst Light is sold at every market and school in the land. or at least closer to my house.

resolute

2008-01-05T13:42:00.000-08:00

this year i have some simple resolutions:

1. subscribe to a newspaper

2. make a smooth transition from pabst blue ribbon to pbr light

and my computer's resolution for 2008:

1. 1440 x 900, 32-bit color

wierd. weird. weerd.

2007-12-11T22:20:00.000-08:00

do you ever have a day where you realize that you have probably been spelling a word wrong for a while? today, for some reason, i thought of the word weird as i listened to a crazy old man ramble waiting for the bus. then i thought, 'weird. weird. w. i. e. r. d? w. e. i. r. d? then i got into that zone where the more i thought about the word, i was certain that it wasn't even supposed to sound the way i was saying it. i was actually driving myself crazy thinking about this on the way home from school. and now i am crazy.

una vista

2007-12-05T16:41:00.000-08:00

i don't know why it seems to be the cool thing to do in the last few months, but apple fanboys and people that just plain hate microsoft will not stop posting on every forum possible that vista is the most god-awful piece of dog shit garbage ever released as an OS. some people i know haven't personally used vista on their machine, but have heard of people downgrading from xp (mostly from the apple commercial) so vista must be for retards.

personally, i have had zero (0, zilch) problems using vista on my new dell. it works just like xp, and has better help functions that search the internet better when you need to. internet explorer 7 sucks, just like every other IE version. but who doesn't use Firefox these days anyway? i don't hear too many people saying, "i'm fucking sooooo happy i have this safari browser instead of internet explorer!" open-source firefox is king.

maybe i would like internet explorer better if it's name wasn't 'Internet Explorer". when there are good customizable browsers like K-Meleon, Firefox, and XeroBank, a browser called Internet Explorer seems like a horrible idea.

the only thing i can see that could count against vista is it's cost (vista ultimate is upwards of $250 while more basic versions cost less), but mine came with my new computer, so i don't care.

i have nothing against apple. i love their new computers (i used their ginormous 24" iMac at best buy the other day *drool*), and i want to get a macbook when i can afford it bacause i really need a laptop. but i can't bring myself to sever the ties i have with all of the programs that i use that run on windows. mostly downloading, video playback and games. i am used to the way windows works, but i am also used to apple having used allison's powerbook for a couple years.

i don't like apple's advertising, however funny it is, that tries to make it sound like apple computers are so much easier and funner to use than other compys. anyone that has used windows exclusively and wanted to make the change to a mac has inevitably had the "you want me to use this without a right-click?" moment, and there is a lot of give and take unless you own a mac and a pc. i don't think i could ever be an apple-exclusive person. too scary.

in beer news, my cousin phillip and i are in agreement that tecate light is a wonderful beer for those of us who enjoy our beer by the dozen, but don't want to worry about calories. tecate light tastes just like regular tecate!

ガルシアピートです。

2007-12-02T17:55:00.000-08:00

i'm having a lot of fun learning japanese in my first semester (1a) of the language. i feel like a traitor to my people, but i am certain that i've learned japanese much easier than spanish (i don't remember too much spanish for taking 4 years of it. i blame society).

i think so far the funniest thing i've learned about japan as a people is that when they count on their fingers, they start with all of their fingers out and pull them down one by one starting with their thumb. my teacher made fun of americans for starting with all their fingers down and counting with their pointer first and thumb last. i know there are many strange things about japanese culture (some of the stuff they eat, tv they watch, games they play), but this one tickled me. thumb first.

in news of beer, i saw a guy order a corona at the bar (white dude) and when the bartender asked if he wanted a lime wedge he said, "oh, is that good?"

the bartender laughed before realizing he was asking seriously. then there was this weird bartender/bar patron moment where they both looked like they smelled shit on each other.

later i saw that someone actually did step in shit outside and he had to leave the bar. the end.

back and better than... never

2007-11-26T15:42:00.000-08:00

well... it's been a few days, i'll admit. but there are 5 stupid and completely acceptable reasons for me not posting over the holidays.

1. i was in gilroy, which means i wasn't on the computer for more than 2 minutes. if i wasn't sleeping until 2pm, i was out. sorry.

2. gilroy high football played saturday and beat los gatos in the semi-finals. no blogging from the field.

3. thanksgiving day was, in order: get ready for eating, eating, drinking wine and beer until sleepy, napping, drinking beer at a bonfire at fonda's, guitar hero marathon until 3am.

4. black friday consisted of me and challa waking up at his house and drinking breakfast Pabsts. then going home and sleeping more until a dinner of leftovers.

5. most important. i forgot i had a blog most of the time until i was at a place with no computer or internet. it's not like i get paid to do this shit. yet.

so to everyone who wished me a happy thanksgiving, happy thanksgiving back at you. and merry christmas.

on a Christmas note, it really pisses me off when everything is "Holiday Sale"-this and "Holiday Gift Ideas"-that. are we going to wise up soon as a nation and start having things like "Christmas Specials" on TV or Christmas Parties at work again? it's not insensitive that Christmas is the king of holidays. it's a fact. Hanukkah needs to get off it's ass and start being more consumer-minded.

blazer

2007-11-20T23:13:00.000-08:00

engadget reported today on a handheld laser that ain't your granddaddy's laser-pointer. for a measly $3,000 you can purchase the Hercules 400, with quite a few handy, everyday capabilities! and by "handy" and "everyday" i mean "questionable" and "pointless". let's take a gander at the specs:

if you can't see it well, it says it can burn through cardboard/thick plastic and IGNITE FUSES. i know it's completely retarded and unnecessary, but if i can burn whoever uses their lame-ass normal laser pointer at the movies right when they point at the screen, i actually see a use for this thing. not $3k worth, but if i could scar someone who abuses their laser powers, it would be nice to have for a day.

in beer news, i'm actually going to do something i have never done before in my nearly 3 years of beer-buying experience, which is purchase a 30-pack of Budweiser. it's kind of crazy to me that regular-ass Bud is probably the only beer i've never bought by the case, but i've always been a Pabst or Coors or Corona or Sierra Nevada or... pretty much most-beer-before-Budweiser kind of guy.

so, liquor store down the street, here's to you for selling 30-packs of Bud for $18. and for keeping Pabst in stock for me, the only guy who buys it from you...

what nintendon't

2007-11-18T12:32:00.000-08:00

on this week's episode of diggnation, the hosts were talking about downloadable games on Xbox live and on the Wii's virtual console, which became a talk about whether the Nintendo Wii should be considered a next-gen console or not. Kevin and Alex were split on the semantics of it ("it came out with this generation of consoles, so it technically is next-gen"), but in the end called it next-gen.

that really got to me, because i always think of the Wii as the poor man's next gen console because of it's graphical limitations. not that i don't want one, ask Allison. she rolls her eyes at that request quite often. but i think the Wii is next-gen in it's gameplay, not it's graphics. the main reason it still looks like you're playing a gamecube game when you play the wii is that nintendo wanted it to be affordable. now that they know the formula works, nintendo can up the visuals in the next iteration of the wii.

gorgeous reasons i want the wii

with all the fanboyism going on with the current group of consoles, it's surprising to me that there are so many people who don't want there to be room for all the big three. i seriously want a ps3, xbox 360, and a wii in my house. i already have a genesis, snes, playstation 1&2, a saturn and a dreamcast (wow, that was a lot of money...), so i have room in my heart for competing companies. but now that i think about what i already have, it's nice to want the new stuff, but i can wait until they fall a couple hundred $$ in price...

in beer news, my brother Nate showed me this site called Beer Glass Hopper that sells many of the things i want for christmas. ever wanted a boot to chug out of like the guys in Beerfest? how about a goddamn Celtic Drinking Horn (pictured)? your dreams have come true! my dream, anyway. any beer drinking man would cry if he unwrapped one of those on christmas morn.

most of the stuff besides the horns are reasonably priced (the horns are mostly around $250, everything else between $5 and $40). any secret santas out there needing ideas for their drunk friends...

struck

2007-11-16T10:21:00.000-08:00

with the writers guild of america on strike, we are soon to be without all of our favorite scripted shows until the strike is over. last week, at the start of of the strike, late night shows like letterman and the daily show went into reruns, and in the next few weeks, we will see shows that have episodes left to air be replaced with more reality tv.

now, i understand that television corporations are raping their employees by not paying them a reasonable amount of DVD residuals and not paying them at all for "new media" (stupid term for internet and on-demand airings), but trying to get sympathy from the viewers who are left to find out that they are indeed not smarter than a 5th grader seems like a bitchy move. not many of us non-entertainment workers can relate to wanting more money for something we did years ago. you don't send a check every year to the guys who built your house for your continued pleasure living in it.

the residual checks, the writers say, are what they are sometimes required to live on when in between jobs, so they want the studios to double what they've been getting for DVD sales(8 cents per), and they want 2.5% of the gross studios make in new media sales and distribution to be divided between members of the WGA. fair enough, the studios make BILLIONS off of home video sales and an unspecified amount from the internet.

however, studio execs claim the internet is an unproven market, and until they can see exactly what kind of many they can make in the long run they don't think the writers should get anything for it. PLUS, most of the current and former studio execs also have their hands in internet companies that have a stake in the streaming/downloadable content division. the writers just want a piece of that money pie.

while i hate the tv industry right now for what they're doing to me personally, i also want the people who write, act, direct, and work on the crews to see some of the money that is normally reserved for the CEOs (they make more than all of the people who work on the shows put together). so really, get on with it, pay the people what they deserve, and stop making me read martha stewart living because there's nothing new on.

in beer (and pizza) news, i went to Uncle Vito's Slice of NY on 16th street in sacramento yesterday before i was supposed to get my haircut, and ended up staying there for 3 hours. awesome new york style pizza and pabst on tap, i skated to the place from my apartment and ended up walking home carrying my skateboard. i tried to write a blog about it then, but i couldn't focus on it. forgot to get my haircut, too...

PS3's in the wild

2007-11-14T19:44:00.001-08:00

recently, a playstation 3 owner sent back their system to get it fixed since they were having problems getting discs to work and eject. he knew it was a bit dusty, but that's because the ps3 is a "dust magnet", everyone knows that. the dude claims he hasn't moved it since he put it in his entertainment center, and swears he wiped it off when he put it in the box to mail back to Sony to get fixed. Sony promptly said his warranty was voided and the technician who was to work on it claimed it was hazardous to his health. here's why:

wash me

this is a picture taken by sony to show the poor condition of the ps3, but they withheld it from the media at first until the story popped up on the internet and kind of forced them to. son of a BITCH. the guy was getting sympathy from people online until the pictures showed up. where the hell did he play this thing, a POW camp? was he saving money for this thing by living in a lean-to?

it looks like he actually took effort to get dirt in the slots. the memory slots even have a cover that is shown there in the open position, but still have shit in them. how could it even be that dirty? yeah the thing might get dusty being in the same place for a long time, but the thing's barely been on sale almost a year. my Sega Saturn isn't even that dirty and it's 10 years old in a pile of games and other crap. no time to take a handy-wipe to the thing? it's a brand new piece of electronics! i don't even want to know what the guy looks like if that's what his playstation looks like from being in his house.

what gets me is the guy said it was "dust" but the pictures show it is clearly dirt, like he was using it as a base at a softball game. i know i'm not the cleanest guy when it comes to my stuff, my car for instance, but that thing is outside every day, not protected under the tv. it is hilarious though that the tech who opened the box said that it was actually dangerous for him to handle the thing, but sending a machine in to get fixed is not the same as getting it cleaned. that's bush-league.

in other news, i finished the pabst in the fridge, so if anyone wants to get me some Pabst Blue Ribbon Honey, i'm very interested in it. i don't know where the hell it is sold, but i'm afraid to pay $20+ online for something i don't know the taste of. is it more pabst-ey than honey-fied? i might have to hunt it down or special order it from bevmo. i hope it comes in 40's. that would actually be the stupidest thing i've ever seen... but i'd drink it on the porch.

to conclude, there is no way sony will replace a ps3 that looks homeless, and there is no way my cat just flung more shit out of the litter box...

emulate

2007-11-13T14:11:00.000-08:00

i was watching last weeks episode of The Totally Rad Show, and near the end the hosts were talking about something which i, sadly, have thought about and talked about with others over the last few years. the topic they were discussing was if and when should a parent nowadays (presumably the father, sorryto the 40 ladies who play video games) introduce to or force upon their children classic video game systems (nintendo, snes, genesis) to show the value of such great games?

the hosts on the show range in age from late 20's to mid-30's, and even i feel old when i talk about how 18+ years ago i started playing nintendo. bear in mind, most games that we all loved when we (those of us old enough to get drunk and make fools of ourselves legally) were kids still hold up today because of one thing: awesome game-play.

i remember the first time i knocked out King Hippo, but don't recall giving a shit that playing Punch-Out wasn't photo-realistic boxing action. it was all about impressing your friends at school with how bad (as in good) you were at a game most people can't beat.

today, it seems that with the advent of HD-ready everything and the massive size of games compared to Super Mario World (i'm playing that right after i'm done with this), what do you think younger kids make of stuff we used to be obsessed with? are most people like me and interested in old-school or obsolete tech (speak and math, beta max, nintendo 64dd)? or is it like in the tv commercials and kids don't even say words anymore and it's all just 1337-speak?

i don't believe that, and i do believe that keeping old systems around (if you've seen my room at my parents' house you know i do, the apartment is a different story) is important in the sense that i will want my kids to know that stuff we used to play didn't beam directly to our brains. actually, i think that the way games are going towards the ridiculously-expensive end of the spectrum, we'll see a surge in retro arcade style gaming.

jumbo fry

2007-11-12T13:48:00.000-08:00

i told Allison a few weeks ago that i would give up fast food until january, and for the most part it has been very difficult to pass up Burger King at the student union when i'm at school.

however, i found this website that points out the differing amounts of calories, trans fat and all the scrumptious nutrition factsin sortable tables. staggering as the statistics are, just reading the names of the sandwiches i've been denied in recent times makes me ache.

seriously, remember the first time you saw Supersize Me? was there not a division between some of you and your friends or girlfriends or boyfriends about how delicious the food looked even though it was killing Morgan Spurlock by the end. it actually made me want a double-double, since In-N-Out is probably the best for you even though a 10x10 will probably cause me numerous problems when i try eating one again.

we see all these articles in newspapers and journals about how america has the fattest citizens. but when we have so many choices of sizes of fries, number of patties, types of cheese etc., where is all of the outrage coming from? i know i need to start working out again, and that's really my fat-ass fault.

would i blame Jack in the Box for being open at 3a.m. when i'm drunk and in need of 99cent tacos? maybe, if i get fat enough. that's the worst, when you wake up and wonder why your stomach hurts more than usual from a 12 pack of mickey's, then you see burger wrappers next to your bed and you remember your trip after the pub to the drive-thru. bastards.

on another note, since today is a holiday (veteran's day, for those not off of work or school), i thought i would drink some Budweiser in honor of my Grandpa Pete. in a coozie, of course.

welcome to my spot

2007-11-11T20:34:00.000-08:00

right off the bat, i really really enjoy not using capitalization in my informal writing, and to me a blog is informal. so get off my back. i use this technique at my discretion since it helps me to type as i think, but i can be pretty inconsistent with it. See, I'm being all correct and stuff.

i'll mostly be updating this from my home computer, but if i can steal my girlfriend Allison's powerbook i can see doing this from the bar down the street, but expect many typos and more ramblings about beer or the state of television than would be considered healthy.

does anyone else notice that the more one uses Firefox, the more it causes your computer to lag? every week or so i have to restart my computer to get it's memory back to normal. seriously, 500 mb of physical memory being used when i run firefox is ridiculous. i found this blog about how mozilla, the company running firefox, is finally owning up to the fact that their browser (which i love and wish could love me back) is a memory-whore. thanks mozilla!

so, today i drank some Dead Guy Ale at 33rd street bistro, a beer i haven't had since i was at least 17 (that's 6 years to people who aren't my mom). verdict: MUCH better than i remember. probably because when i was 17 i didn't even like the taste of Coors Light, let alone an amber ale that has a deliciously strong aftertaste.

oh, and this blog might be profanity-free for the most part (a few shits here and there never killed too many people), but the content might stray from the family friendly. i don't want too many 15 year-olds using my beer reviews when they choose which beverage they want a homeless guy wearing saran wrap as a blanket to purchase for them at the Circle K. i'll try some self-censorship for the most part.