We went to the Dodger’s game on sunday (hey did I mention it was HUMID!) at some point they showed Tommy Lasorda on the big screen and mentioned something about him being inducted into the Canadian Hall of Fame. All I could think about were the famous Tommy Lasorda after game reporter rants and how funny it would be to play a few clips while showing his face on the big screen. Here is a great clip containing about 12 minutes of various Lasorda rants cut together (He’s like Joe Pesci in Good Fellas!):

Tommy Lasorda, my favorite Dodger!

Some people mod their computers and video game consoles while others mod their cars… I’ve mod’d my Keg-R-Rator! Most of you are probably laughing by now thinking why would you mod a Keg-R-Rator!? The first keg installed into this Keg-R-Rator was a a 13.5 gallon (1/2 Barrel Euro) keg of Newcastle. After I finished this keg I realized that:
a)I’ve grown tired of Newcastle and I’m noticing the flavor has changed quite a bit over the 4+ years I’ve been drinking it.
b)13.5 gallons is a large quantity of liquid to consume.
c)I’ve enjoyed home-brewing as you can brew flavors that are often harder to buy/find (ie Scottish Ale/Wee Heavy)
d)Microbreweries often sell their *better* beers in 5 gallon (pony) kegs.
e)Variety is the spice of life!
So I began to think when I bought my second keg (a 5 gallon keg of Fat Tire) that I could easily fit two 5 gallon kegs in the Keg-R-Rator! Between parts purchased from keg superstore Micromatic and local homebrew superstore Steinfillers I was able to devise a way to *switch* between two 5 gallon kegs.

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left;” hspace=”8”>The result of my madness allows me to constantly supply C0₂ to both kegs (with shut-offs for each line) this will keep the liquid from going flat and allow me to easily dispense from either keg. There are two liquid shut-off valves leading into a “T” and out one hose which will flow to the tap on top. These two liquid shut-off valves are what allow me to choose which keg to have the liquid come from (not that I’d ever try it but I could run both at the same time, maybe if I were to get *black* and *tan* kegs. Also I reduced the entire system down to a (local) common sized compression nut which will allow me to hook up any combination of 2 homebrew or commercial 5 gallon kegs (with the proper keg jumper hoses, of course). The result works well, when I want to switch to a different flavor, shut off one valve and open the other valve and the second keg is now in operation.

The next *mod* will be to get a second Tap and Tower and replace the current tower so I will not have to switch between the two. This will be most beneficial if and when I decide to make root beer. However, with the work i’ve allready done, adding the second tower/tap will be pretty easy.

Today’s the day, USA vs Italy! That’s what I’m doing for my birthday folks… well at least for the morning and early afternoon… after that I’m heading out to dinner with the family but mostly to celebrate my grandparent’s 55th wedding anniversary. I share my birthday with their anniversary date. You see I was *the* 38th wedding anniversary gift!

A little tradition of mine has been to play “Happy Birthday to Me” by the Vandals way to many times… so this year you can all play it for me and laugh along, it’s a great anthem to have on your birthday!

I enjoyed this movie! I just checked rotten tomatoes and I’m seeing low ratings and I think the problem is people are expecting Napoleon Dynamite. Now that would be a fair comparison if the movie were called Napoleon Dynamite Dos or something, but it’s not. I think because director/writer Jared Hess along with his wife are mostly responsible for the humor and style of the movie (and also they are the reason why we have a Napoleon Dynamite) is the cause for the comparisons to ND.

Also it’s hard to judge a style after two movies but you can begin to see Jared’s style and I love it. I feel the same way I felt the same when I first saw Bottle rocket and then Rushmore. Hess creates another awesome *world* by immersing the viewer deep into local the community and creating characters we can both relate to, sympathise, laugh at, love and thoroughly enjoy. The music (can you say ELF-MAN!) and cinematography are similar to ND and the use of creative plating in food (and I guess the one time someone uses chap-stick!). Beyond stylistic / look issues (and the fact both are comedies and silly) the two movies are not intended to be the same.

Jack Black! It’s no secret I’m a huge JB fan. Nacho wouldn’t be the same movie with out him. He adds his much of his flare to the character while keeping it within the PG / Hess guidelines. For me, Nacho is a more natural JB compared to the repressed school of rock JB (but no where near the Mr Show/Tenacious D, JB). Along with his fantastic voice and clever song writing JB is able to punctuate a scene (and often push laughter over the edge) by over acting, using his facial expressions, rapid eye movements and awkward stances (which often play up his normally unappealing physique). Believe me when he’s unmasked (no spoiler!)… you’ll thoroughly enjoy the face! Jack Black is simply amazing and his energy is over the top while keeping it PG.

I’d have preferred this movie was released as Indie rather than wide as it’d probably get better reviews and not just be a quick buck for the studio trying to capitalize on the success of ‘school of rock’ with ‘the director of ND.’ The theater was full of middle school / high school aged kids who were there to see Napoleon Dynamite 2 because I’m sure MTV told them to go and enjoy (which many didn’t seem to get it fully anyway, they were quite antsy). I also predict that next weeks box office numbers will go down quite a bit once the big secret is let out (you see it’s really not Napoleon Dynamite 2!)

I’m mostly concerned because don’t want to see pop culture, fame and promises of fortune to ruin a good director/writer like Jared Hess (and wife Jerusha) because I am becoming a loyal fan and I can’t wait to see the next movie. We need more directors like Wes Anderson and Hess, they add a great style you can look forward to and enjoy when it is delivered (yes I do enjoy the life aquatic quite a bit!)

PS The new Aardman/Dreamworks venture looks to be interesting, saw the trailer, immediately recognized the eyes and was intrigued to see a little Aardman logo at the end. Will they be able to help Dreamworks reach Pixar quality? We’ll see!

We’ve been busy here at work, I don’t want to miss any soccer (even though I’m DVR’ing it) and I don’t have a sling box (yet!) so I’ve been using a cool P2P TV service called: TVU. Basically it works like any other P2P / BitTorrent client, you watch (download from someone) and you donate (upload to someone). There aren’t a lot of channels all of the time, but usually you can catch a decent amount of sports and other stuff. So if you’re like me and can’t miss your sport or you don’t have cable, check it out!

Now there is no Dewberry this season, but there are plenty of Gordon Ramsay Insults, like this one, which had me crying last night:

Bring on the sarcastic comments, Mr. Ramsay!

I know… soccer fans are generally viewed as crazy and full of energy… and I’m not going to go too crazy for the World Cup… but in order to show my spirit I added my favorite soccer team’s country colors and their slogan to my blog. That’s it people, this will be here for the duration of the World Cup (or until Italy is eliminated) and maybe if they make it to the finals I’ll do something crazy!

First game starts tomorrow, Germany vs Costa Rica, remember to visit WorldCupOnTV.com if you care to any watch games and you can always get scores and info from ESPN’s Soccernet.

FORZA AZZURRI!!!
Ok one last time, I promise!

For another fun way to waste some time during your normally busy day, check out Google Trends. This is a cool research tool free from our *friends* at google. All type in a word or phrase and google will check their logs to see where people are coming from looking for the same thing. For instance it seems that Paris Hilton is much more popular in the Philippines than in the US (we’re #9!) and Americans the most obsessed when it comes to Vodka. I also find it surprising NZ, AU, and UK are more obssed with Conspiracy than the US, but we’re more obsessed with Government Conspiracy. FYI, You can also type in *naughty* words and find out other interesting facts!>

Have fun!!

I bought a (cheap) used DVD Recorder off ebay and it didn’t come with a user’s guide. I found one on the internet and I was browsing through the chapter talking about creating chapter marks on your newly recorded DVD when I came across this great Image:

These images appear through the rest of the chapter as if they are making their own movie. I gave names to each animal (which made me laugh more) but I especially love *Dialated Doggie, AKA Mr. Stupid-Happy* (Chapter 4) and *Spooky, Ghost Kitty* (Chapter 5). After laughing for a while I started to think about the guy who had to write the user guide and then the poor artist who had to find some fun within this booring technical portion of the manual. I started to think back to old walkman and other electronics manuals and I do remember funny sketches like these. I think a fun idea for a website would be to collect images like these and write your own captions (like we used to do in grade school with our wrestling mags) much like airtoons.com!