Beers Of The Year 2017

I just felt like listing out my top couple beers of the year for 2017. I went through my data and found the top couple highest rated beers and tried to remember where I was and how the beer was at the time. These were the best IMO. These are not in any order.

• Hazedelic Juice Grenade - Grist House
• Pink Yoga Pants - Insurrection
• Exquisite Beast - Dancing Gnome
• Surf Wax IPA - Burial Beer Company
• Hoodoo - Voodoo Brewing
• Flesh & Blood IPA - Dogfish Brewing

If I had to pick a #1 beer of the year I would have to wrap that up with the holy trinity combo from one of my favorite breweries, East End

• Partly Clahdy / Chance 'A Shahrs / PA Handshake

My First Amazon Product Review

Joy Bidet C2-SC on Amazon

Great Product!

At some point we will all get these installed on our homes. I had personally knew of bidets but never used one until I was in Buenos Aires. I started looking for options for my home as soon as I returned.

This particular one was simple to install and I have no issues with leaks. It works brilliantly and our whole family is very satisfied. If you read up on this and decide to buy one you won't go wrong here. I prefer this option over an entirely separate bowl.

They gave me a free one to write a honest review. I had already had one but never written a review for it. Now I have a backup.

My Review on Amazon

Highlights 2013

Well I wanted to make a Top 5 list of the best things that occured in my life this past year but as I was looking for notable events that happened I found way more than 5 things I wanted to remember. Without further ado here is a list of things that happened this year that are memorable to me and a brief explanation of each. This is somewhat in chronological order.

Ear Of Luigi - According to Nintendo after pushing Mario down our throats for 20 some years it is finally time for Luigi to shine.

Data Analyst 2 - At work I have finally been recognized for my hard work and effort and after they retooled the job titles I have been promoted. Long overdue but at least I finally got a noteworthy bump in salary to help pay for the things that have gone up in price in the last few years when they skimped on giving us more money.

Attended 100th Pens Game - I've been to a lot of Penguins games and luckily I have a lot of friends that are fans that went with me. I don't know how much longer I'll have the tickets but I am super satisfied with what I have achieved so far. (add my record here)

May Trip To Argentina - Well I have been out of the country before. This was actually my 3rd trip to Buenos Aires, Argentina in my life but this time we were able to take Isaac. He is now an international traveller. I think this was super good for him to see another culture. Hopefully it sticks with him.

1 Year Anniversary - On 2013-06-08 I have been married to my wonderful wife for a whole year now! How is that not awesome?!

Took Isaac To See Weird Al - This wasn't the first concert the boy was ever at. We took him to see Phish before but we haven't been able to get him to a Weird Al show until now. Unfortunately due to the venue we were not able to meet up with him after the show but it was still a great experience.

Bushy Run Battlefield 250th Anniversary - Despite living only a mile or 2 away and it being around my birthday ever year, I have never been to the Battle Of Bushy Run Battle Reenactment before. We finally made it this year and it was the 250th anniversary to boot so it was a good one. I got some cool swag.

Ale Got Her Driver's License - She failed the test 5 times. I was admittedly not very happy. I couldn't understand how someone as smart as Ale could not grasp the concept of driving. She's still not a pro at it but finally at least she passed her test and is a licensed driver.

Green Baycation - I had on my 'bucket list', if you will, to attend an NFL football game at the holy mecca of football stadiums, Lambeau Field in Green Bay Wisconsin, for several years now. The problem is due to the way they make the schedule the Steelers only play Green Bay once every five years and of course last time they met they played here in Pittsburgh but finally this year it was our turn. I have been pushing this to all my friends for years and it seemed like I had a following but when it came time to put up or shut up, no one came forward. I was disappointed but not deterred. I had to shanghai Ale and take her instead. Luckily the whole trip worked out better than I imagined. We saw Chicago and the game went down exactly as I pictured it, snowy and wow what a game to boot! (link doc and pic album)

PS4 - Sony released a new system. Pretty impressive. I hope they follow it up with some good games. There wasn't really anything good that I craved at launch so I am still awaiting justification. Hopefully Infamous Second Son, Watchdogs and Destiny are kick ass.

Xmas Vacation - I took the rest of the year off after December 20th. Not only for the Green Baycation but to spend time with the boy and play with him and play video games of course. I had a lot of stress this year so it was nice to be off and not have to do anything for a while. Hopefully I can make this an annual thing.

Babbies - To say this was the year a lot of my friends had a baby is an understatement.

• ADELYN MAE WEYANDT  - MAY
• CARTER RYAN MEALS - AUG
• DANIEL MOOK FREY - SEPT 
• ZACK WEIN - OCT
• GALL - NOV 

Health - Also did a lot of things to stay healthy.

• I walked 4 million steps (4,322,302 to be exact)
• Did 10k push ups (10,220 to be exact)
• Read 50 books (52 to be exact)

IN CONCLUSION 
Well if you look at it like that it seems I had a fairly awesome year. Hopefully in my mind I can change my perception to think of this year in these terms and that should help me stay happy and positive. Next year as Ale and I have already discussed won't be filled with as many trips and events as we have been doing because we need to start saving money but I think it will still have some noteworthy happenings going on. Here is a small preview:

Big Stuff Planned for 2014

• Paying Off Student Loan
• Buying Property For Dreamhouse
• Groundhogs Day
• Cartwright Babby :D

What A Great Holiday

This was an absolutely fantastic holiday season. Perhaps one of the best ever!! Everything went great and with the exception of my car not a thing went wrong at all. I saw tons of my family and friends and did all sorts of fun things with them. I am so very lucky and happy and I wish I could feel this good all the time.

Wednesday 12/22
It all started when I went to the Pens game with Drew. (read more) We had a blast and got to see each other and hang out and catch up on stuff not to mention that the Pens whooped some ass that night. Perfect way to start the holiday.

Thurs 12/23
No more work for the weekend!! I was supposed to call Drew to invite him over to Matt's for his holiday/the dog's birthday party but he ended up being busy with his family but it didn't matter. I had another absolutely fabulous time. I got to meet Matt's new girlfriend Brandi and she seemed really nice. Plus tons of other friends came over and we watched the Pens and then the Steelers and did shots and got drunk and it was just insane. I remember wanting to cut out early when I started getting tired but because I was the first one there my car was jammed up in the back and there was no way I was getting out. I ended up sticking it out and being the last person to leave. The only bad thing that happened is that Brandon broke the ESPN food dispensing football thing that Matt had. Now it doesn't play the sound when you hit the button to open it so we had to do it manually all night. People wondered why we were doing that but it was funny to us.

Friday 12/24
I got up late today and decided to just laze around until 6pm when Isaac was supposed to be here. I had a package in the mail though when I went out to check and it was my copy of 3D Dot Game Heroes for PS3 that Ale had bought me for Xmas! Yay!! There was something for me to play.
Got Isaac, left out bells for Santa

Sat 12/25
Xmas!!
We played all day!! The big toy of the year, Snap Circuits, was a huge hit!

Sun 12/26
Globetrotters, went to see Pappy, Rick's for dinner

Mon 12/27
Played, went to see Pappy, saw the cigar box guitar museum at Speal's Tavern

Tues 12/28
Played, practiced karate, built Lowes trains

Wed 12/29
Thurs worked

Fri 12/30
Went to Nate's, played w iPad

Sat 12/31
Winter Classic, tailgating

Sun 01/01
Recover time, went over goals with Ale

"Scott Pilgrim Vs The World" Crowned King!!

I saw both Scott Pilgrim and Piranha 3D this weekend.

I don't know how it worked out like that. I should have seen Scott Pilgrim twice. After seeing how awesome it was the 1st time with Danimus on Friday night I tried to rally the troops to come see it with me on Saturday night. Everyone seemed to be amenable to that but when it came time no one showed up and for some reason Joel switched gears and wanted to see Piranha 3D. I think because I knew I'd see it again anyway I agreed so I could see 2 different movies in 2 days rather than the same one twice.

Now as shocked as I am to say this after only seeing it once, Scott Pilgrim may be my new #1 movie of all time. It blew me away and I just don't know how it is not making good money in the theaters. I am definitely going again before it disappears so I can take Isaac. If you love anything about video games go see it immediately. It's nerdy as hell, lots of insane vg action and hot young girls.

In a nutshell, Scott is dating a cute young Asian girl and all his friends just think that's a bad idea. Soon he has a dream about the delivery girl, Ramona Flowers, and sees her at a party. As soon as he begins obsessing about her, his roommate makes him break up with his current gf and she doesn't like that and swears vengeance. As Scott and Ramona's relationship begins budding, Scott starts being attacked by random guys (and one girl) that are ex's of Ramona. There are 7 to defeat in all to be able to successfully date her.

I love the camera work at the beginning of the film. Scott is busy doing a number of mundane everyday life activities and is just going thru the motions. The camera will zoom in on him so you can't see any of the scene we were just in and then zoom back out revealing his moved to a different location. Like he is blacking out between activities and time is just escaping him. I believe 'Spun' used a similar technique.

With the exception of the DDR machine at the beginning of the film I don't think they really reference video games directly at all which is weird if you think about it. Although they kind of are the video game or are in the video game they still have to kill boredom like everyone else I think. The fights are sick even though Scott seems to win pretty easily most of the time. I don't know what power or training he possesses that he is able to defeat this other obviously stronger opponents. For example, one ex is pounding him mercilessly and Scott just stops the fight and challenges him to skateboard down some icy rails. The guy does it all right but he's going so fast when he reaches the bottom he crashes and is defeated. That would be the only minor gripe I have about the movie. I absolutely love the enemies turning into coins when they get defeated. The other extra power up stuff is awesome too. At one point Scott is asked why he challenges a character to fight and he answers 'For Ramona'! for which he gets a power-up of a glowing 'Power of Love' sword the he pulls from his chest. When he gets defeated and has to use a 1-up to restart the battle he answers 'For Myself' the second time and the 'Power of Self-Respect' sword is his bonus this time. It is a different color and much stronger. Very subtle but very video game like.

I absolutely cannot wait until this movie is available on disc so I can own it and watch it a million times. I have a feeling that even though it, by Hollywood standards, bombed I know that it will do exceedingly well as a cult classic and make its money back that way. I will award this movie a definite 10 out of 10 but I will have to watch it at least 9 more times before I decide where to slot it on the uwvark27's favorite movie of all time list.


AND THE OTHER ONE...

Piranha 3D was good but not best movie ever. I love bloody horror movies and this was right up my alley. If you don't like blood, violence, or open water stay away. Those piranhas ate everything and everybody. There was really no plot except for that. I can't believe how many famous people were in this movie! DOC BROWN!! The end sets up the sequel well (which I prob would have rather seen than this).