Bill and Jon's Excellent Beer-Making Adventure

There's an old adage about food that says something like "if you make it yourself, it's always going to taste better than something someone else makes for you." I'm not exactly sure that's true (I've had some pretty delicious cheeseburgers prepared for me that I don't think I could recreate), but it is true that if you make something for others, they'll tell you it's good even if it's not. Unless you're at a restaurant or on Iron Chef, in which case no matter what you do, people will say it's not that great.

With that in mind, I decided that I wanted to brew beer. This was made especially easy after Kate got me a sweet brewkit for my birthday. Boil kettle, fermentation bucket, bottling bucket, siphon tubes, bottle wand, hydrometer, capper, the whole works. Plus all the ingredients to make my first beer! I could either use all the hops and aim for an IPA, or leave out the last hop addition and get a hoppy pale ale. I chose IPA. Might as well go all out.

To assist me in my efforts slash help me make a mess of the kitchen, Bill came up. I figure if one person with no idea what's going on can make a beer (according to my books and the guy at Brewtopia), then two people with no idea what's going on can make a beer that's twice as disastrous!

I started the first 2 gallons of water boiling before Bill arrived since watching water boil is about as exciting as... well, watching water boil. I also put the grain bag in there, so when he walked in (with a sweet Iced Mocha Latte for me!), there was already a nice grainy aroma permeating the kitchen. We quickly took care of our lattes and got serious about brewing, which basically means that we started drinking Pumpkinhead and let the water keep boiling. I kid you not, the first step in my instructions is "Relax. Don't worry. Have a homebrew." As this was my first batch of beer, no homebrew was available, but the directions said it was ok to substitute a different craft beer.

Once we hit the boiling point, things started to get crazy. Bill took the steaming hot grain bag outside to dump the grain while I started adding malt. And also the priming sugar, which I was not supposed to do, but I got a little over excited mixing things into the pot and it wasn't labeled. So that was mistake #1. I also stuck the first hop addition back into the grain bag, tossed it into the boil and set my clock for 60 minutes. I am not sure the grain bag is supposed to be used for hops, but I have no way to filter the hops out of the wort, so my options are a bit limited at the present.

Two more hop additions with 30 minutes to go and 5 minutes to go, and the "beer" was done. We put 3 more gallons of water into the fermentation bucket, I prepped the yeast and we started cooling our wort. Sadly, I was very impatient and only let the beer cool down to about 90 degrees before I decided to pitch my yeast. This was mistake #2. The ideal temperature for yeast is about 65-70 degrees, which I only learned about a week later. However, the yeast packet told me to activate it at 86-92 degrees, so I thought maybe things would be ok.

After about 9 days, the air lock on my fermentation bucket still hadn't done anything. Thinking that obviously I had killed the yeast with the high temperature, I picked up a second packet at the homebrew shop in Northampton where I learned an interesting fact. Apparently with the high humidity of the summer, sometimes the lid on the fermentation bucket can't seal completely, so the air escapes out the sides of the lid instead of through the air lock. The guy told me to pop the top and check for signs of fermentation. And it's a good thing I did (although I would have had to pop the top anyways since I was going to pitch a second yeast packet), as the beer had fermented! I decided to let it go a couple more days to account for the extra sugar and make sure the yeast had eaten everything. Go yeast! So it turns out that mistake #3 was thinking I had made a huge mistake and being wrong about it. Not too bad.

Finally, 13 days after brew day, it was time to bottle. I am a little paranoid about sanitation, so pretty much everything that touches the beer is doubled sanitized. Siphoning the beer into the bottling bucket was super easy (and a lot of fun) with my tubes, and I think I might get a second siphon to use as a pug sprayer. Then I started the bottling process. Bottling is also really easy, but I think next time I'm going to want a second person around to help. Or I'm going to need to evolve a second pair of arms. It was simple enough to fill a few bottles and cap them, but I think an assembly line process would just be smoother.

All in all, I ended up with 41 bottles of beer along with a puddle on the floor. That seems like a low total, so I'll have to check next time that I used enough water. It should be ready to drink by Labor Day weekend, so I'm pretty excited. You know, assuming that no hurricanes destroy it.

-Jon

The Top 5 Party Games

Editor's note - If you play any of the games listed below, you do so at your own risk. Nobody at Mmmm, opinions (or it's Mmmm sister sites) are in any way responsible if you hurt yourself being stupid. Do not try these things at home; we are trained professionals.

Being an intern here at Mmmm, opinions is a thankless job. Long hours, no pay, and Slick constantly questioning your sexuality are just some of the challenges associated with the job. However, when i can get out of the office (located next to the old theater in Gary, IN), I like to party. And when I party, I like to play some games. After playing dozens and dozens of games, I have compiled a list of the top 5.

I recommend all of them.*

5. The Case Race

The Case Race is a great way to start off the night or a great way to embarrass kids from Westfield State College who think they can outdrink you. The game is simple: you and a partner drink 24 beers before the other team. Some people mistake a case of beer for a 30-pack of beer. Those people are always in for an interesting night.

4. Whiskey Slaps

A Slick favorite. Whiskey Slaps is a game played between two people. You take a shot of whiskey, and your partner slaps you. To make the game interesting, Pat the Intern and his friends only play men vs. women. Three of the women slapped during this game have slept with the guy who slapped them that night. That last sentence is both scary and really true.

3. Phone Swap

Put your phone on the table. Pick up someone else's phone. For the next hour, you hold the power to ruin someone's life. Some popular texts include texting parents that they are gay, texting ex-boyfriends/girlfriends and saying that they are still in love with them, or simply tossing the phone out the window.

2. Gamble Your Dignity

Gamble Your Dignity is a game where a person holds two dice. That person then picks someone else playing and says, "if I roll X, you have to do Y." The game is best played at parties where you don't know the people playing, because then you can make the classic GYD bet: if I roll a 7, you have to put all the silverware in this house down your pants. Which has been successful 3 times. Here is a sample of bets made:

• If I roll a 2, you have to date your ex-girlfriend again (who sucked)
• If I roll a 10, you can't watch March Madness this year
• If I roll an 8, you have to give a girl of my choice at the next party we go to a love letter that I wrote. And you can't read it beforehand.

1. Fire!

This game should only be played once.** It is the simplest of all games. You light an article of clothing you're currently wearing on fire and can't put it out until you chug a beer. However, if it is determined you drank your beer too fast, you can't put the fire out until you get someone else to drink their beer. Usually someone will put the fire out before anybody gets burned, but hey; you could have friends who hate you.

So there you have it. I have personally played or have heard of all these games being played, and they are loads of fun.***

Until next time, this is Pat the Intern.

-Pat the Intern

* I do not recommend that anyone play these games.

** This game should never be played.

*** Fire! is not fun at all, but it is a real game. I promise.

My Cousin's Wedding and Other Stories

First and foremost, this isn't an opinion but a collection of stories that have all happened recently. Clearly you're not that busy if you're reading our blog, so I'm sure you'll appreciate the diversion even if it doesn't technically fit the title of the blog. However, it will most likely still be over opinionated so, I mean, I guess it fits. In any case, I haven't written anything substantial in a while so this is probably going to be a pretty long post. So get your popcorn ready, get settled in a comfortable chair and get out the checkbook and pay grandma for the rubdown. Let's go.

Saturday was an extremely important day in the history of my family: USA was playing Ghana in the round of 16 . . . oh yeah and the first of my maternal grandmother's grandchildren got married or something. I think. I never technically saw them get married, but we'll get to that part of the story soon. Alright, so USA-Ghana: The Rematch. Could the US get revenge against the team that prevented them from advancing out of the group stage four years ago? No. Fucking assholes. Now the game started at 2:30 and the wedding started at 4:30 . . . I think you can see where this is going. First half highlights: I'm not sure, I was sleeping on the floor of our hotel room. Oh yeah, I skipped that part. We drove to New Hampshire to make sure we were there in time to check in to our hotel before the game started. Right. So after Ghana scored, which I think happened in the first 8 seconds, I took a nap. Second half, USA dominating the attack and Landon "Big Dick" Donovan bangs home a penalty shot for the equalizer. Then, in a brilliant tactical move, the US decides to stop attacking and you know the end of the story. Of course, you also know that this game went to extra time, so by the time the game was over it was like 5:15. Oops. The most important game in the history of US soccer vs. my cousin's wedding. I maintain we made the right choice. If you're my mother, you do not feel the same way. However, if you're my mother, after hearing that the game went to extra time, you say to Lindsay, "Do you think they're going to come and keep an eye on the score here?" Yeah, we watched 90 minutes but we're not going to watch the overtime. Right. So the game ends in disappointing fashion but we put on our game faces because goddammit, we have a wedding to attend.

Brief aside: My cousin Amy was by far the LeBron James in the "Barbara Simmons' Grandchildren Wedding" Fantasy Draft, but there's a sharp dropoff after that. Who could possibly be the number 2 pick? It's a real conundrum. I'd have to say that the safe pick would be Jon or Emily because they're quickly approaching 30 and everyone knows that your life pretty much ends at 30, so why not get married? On the other hand, you may want to take Big Slick with the number 2 spot, not that I'm anywhere close to that point but because, well, I do some pretty stupid/hilarious things when I drink and unfortunately I can't completely rule out the possibility that I'd get drunk married. I'm just saying . . . the two spot is wide open.

Back to the wedding. We pull up to the address listed via the help of Garmin, and we're at a high school or something that looks like Ludlow High before it was renovated and shit. The name of the place we were going was "Searles Castle" so we're a little confused. After navigating our way through the maze and crossing the moat, we find some parking. Yay! Then the limo from the wedding pulls next to us and the driver asks if we want a ride up. "Is it far?" we ask. "Far enough that you don't want to walk." Fuck yeah, free ride in a limo. I feel fancy. We get to the top, mingle in the crowd like we've been there the whole time. "Beautiful ceremony." Can't go wrong right? The rest of the wedding was pretty much what you'd expect, with 4 events worth mentioning.

1. My grandfather, for reasons that escape normal human comprehension, thought it was appropriate to carry a small comb with him and occasionally stick it above his lip to form a Hitler mustache and give the Nazi salute. I was a little buzzed so I thought it was hysterical, but I don't think that's socially acceptable.
2. My grandmother was talking to a guy that grew up on the same street and I guess he's still pretty close friends with my Uncle Bob. She turns to me and says, "Billy, this is Charlie Tarvell, he was one of your uncle's best friends growing up." So, being the polite young man I am, I introduce myself. At this point my grandmother disappears and the guy says to me, "Man, your mother saved me from going to prison for 20 years. She's a fucking saint." He then turns, and walks away. So . . . um yeah, that happened.
3. Same guy, nicknamed "Slim Shady" by Matt for wearing his sunglasses on the dance floor even though it was like 10 and the wedding was outside, dominated the floor for 4 hours without stopping. Dude was a white dancing machine.
4. Real fat girl with a tramp stamp. Matt says, "That's not a tramp stamp, that's a tramp postcard."

That was my main story, now here are some other things.

Nothing makes me angrier than people that make a facebook account for two people. Like Rich-Laura Buttfucker. Holy shit. It's fucking facebook. It doesn't cost you anything. Either make two separate accounts or just use one of your names. "Well, I'm friends with Rich but I'm not really that close with Laura. Oh what's that? It's both of them together? Well then, I'm going to accept that friend request." Stupid fucking morons. I don't understand it. What could you possibly gain by having both of your names there? Am I supposed to be impressed that the two of you are so happy together that you feel the need to only have one account? Go fuck yourselves. I feel safe in assuming that if you have one of these two name profiles that you are in your 30's and as I've already pointed out, your lives are already over. However, if you are that old you probably should not be on facebook. As far as I can tell, facebook has 3 legitimate uses.
1. Most importantly, stalking girls you find attractive. Even if you don't. Every guy knows, and every girl should know by now, that a guy will check out a girl no matter what. NO. MATTER. WHAT. It's hardwired into our DNA or some shit, I'm not a fucking scientist. Facebook stalking. Legitimate use # 1.
2. Making sarcastic comments on people's status updates and liking things that probably shouldn't be liked. For example, today I liked Lindsay Gauthier's status when it said a kindergartener called her a bitch. Should I have liked it? It's a tough call but still, legitimate use #2.
3. Keeping contact with people that you know, but probably don't like that much. For example, I currently have 289 friends. Studies show that you can really only have like 150 people that you genuinely care about. Sorry 139 people, we can be facebook friends but we're not really friends.
So get off facebook you old fucks. You're distracting me from all the stalking I need to accomplish.

Now that my mandatory ranting is out of the way, I can regale you with my adventure to the bank. I went to the aforementioned bank to deposit some checks and to finally open my checking account. So I'm signing some paperwork, not really paying attention to what it says. I may have signed on to make a bukkake. I'm not sure. Whatever. So the lady's talking me through the steps of online bill pay because I guess I look like I'm retarded or something, and she casually asks me if I just graduated because I mentioned that while I was in school I wanted to keep all my money in that high interest savings account. Woohoo, 0.0045% interest. FREE MONEY! So naturally, I tell her yes, I just graduated in May. Then she hits me with, "Wonderful. Do you have any plans for college in the Fall?" Yeah bitch, to not go back. Now, I realized that I have these boyish good looks, but I didn't realize I would be mistaken for someone who's still waiting for their testicles to descend. She then tried to play it off as a compliment, but fuck that shit. Nobody who's 22 wants to hear they look like they're 18. Talk to me when I'm 30 and I look like I'm 23. That's a fucking compliment. Dumb bitch.

My final story involves some outdoor chores. Jon can be the man of the house when it comes to paying bills and stupid stuff like that. I'll be the man of the house when it comes to yardwork and killing spiders. That's right spiders! The reign of Jon the Meek has been replaced by the reign of Bill the Douche. I'M COMING FOR YOU!!! So I decided I was going to remove the weeds from our back patio and around our trees in the front yard. Holy shit. I didn't realize Chuck's house was built on a fucking rainforest. It looked like I had ass-raped a jungle when I was done. Being the thinking man I am, I decided to grab the claw garden tool I stole from my mom's house and twist up the roots I couldn't pull out of the ground. Fuck you roots. You're on notice too. Upon doing so, I noticed a small hornets' nest on one of the cross beams. Deciding that our family didn't need another hornet catastrophe, I went over to the hardware store to grab some hornet blasting shit and some weed killer. It's nice to live close to civilization. Center Street is like 8 hours away from anything useful. Back at the house I quickly learned that hornets do not like being sprayed with my white foam. After that, I gave the perimeter a dousing with weed killer. Tomorrow morning will tell if it worked/I did a a good job applying it. I'll be sure to keep you updated on this thrilling adventure.

That's right Jon. I just shattered the record for longest blog post. Suck on that Frenchie.

-Slick

Don't Call It a Comeback

aaaahhhhhh . . . and so the silence is broken. I should point out that I'm supposed to be still studying for an Intro to Psychology test (because I'm a second semester senior, that's why I'm taking it), but as a much younger Bill Dias probably said, "Fuck studying." And by much younger I mean like 2 or 3 weeks ago, whenever my last test was. Seriously, I'm not sure I've ever loathed doing work this much in my life. And I worked at Randall's. It's gotten to the point where I check the work I'm supposed to be doing, see a 5 page reading assignment, and react as follows: "5 fucking pages? Are you fucking kidding me? Do you realize how long it takes to read 5 god damn pages? FUCK!!" Fuck you James Dalton. Fuck you and your stupid Law and Economics class that starts at 8:30 in the morning. What college in their right mind has classes at this ungodly hour? Fucking bullshit ones. "But Slick," you ask, "Didn't you have to sign up for this class?" Why yes, yes I did. But the problem was that this was the only economics elective open when I went to register because I had to take some stupid honors seminar, and the one I wanted to take blocked me from taking the only other elective that wasn't taught by a fucking moron so now I'm stuck taking a boring ass class on Dante and his Divine Comedy (spoiler alert: it's not that funny) and a bullshit econ class that meets at 8:30 in the morning, and I have to write a horsecrap research essay on some bullshit in Dante, which obviously I haven't started yet, so basically this semester kind of sucks. That's why I'm taking an Intro to Psychology class, because it was supposed to be easy. Also, there's absolutely no chance that other sentence is grammatically acceptable so Jon I hope you enjoy throwing commas in there or whatever it is you do when you edit my posts.

But enough ranting, it's time for me to regale you with a tale of my latest bowling excursion. Not only did I bowl a personal best 160, which was good enough to beat Evan and Alec combined, but I also had the chance to see a quite interesting fellow. And yes I'm proud that I beat the combined score of two ten year-olds. Big whoop, you wanna fight about it? Now, man who bowled next to me but almost certainly does not read this blog: I'm not calling you a loser because you brought your own ball or because you have one of those wrist thingy's or because you bobbed up and down for like 8 seconds every time before you rolled- I'm pretty sure society has already done that. I'm calling you a loser because you chose to put "Ice Dragon" as your bowling name. I'm about 98% percent confident that when you're not bowling with "Monkey" and "Frog Princess," as you lovingly called the woman and her son who you kidnapped and took bowling, that you probably play a lot of World of Warcraft. So you and my old buddy Julian have that in common. What? That was probably his wife and child? Bullshit. Nevertheless, I applaud Ice Dragon's confidence as well as his open flaunting of the law.

What? Oh right, I'm supposed to throw in some sort of actual opinion about something, not just relate some hilarious anecdotes. Well, here it is: Lost is much better than I thought it was.

There. Are you happy? Savages.

-Slick

Party Playoff is . . .

a boardgame that potentially could be a lot of fun if you played with a good group of people. I however played with a group of sucknuts. It's beyond irritating to hear a group of drunk girls shrieking after every round. Holy shit, I've never hit nor would I ever hit a woman but I would get Chris Rock to shake the shit out of them. Did anyone get that? But wait, (cue dramatic music) I still need to explain how you play.

Party Playoff is a NCAA tournament bracket style game with 4 regions, each with 8 potential winners. The 4 regions are people, places, activities, and things. The way the game works is that there is a championship question set up like, "What do cops spend more time thinking about?" so you pick your favorite from each of the four regions and then pick a final round and then your winner. You could keep this question in mind as you pick your winners, but really it doesn't make that much of a difference because some dumbass is going to ruin your bracket. If you've ever filled out a bracket it's pretty much the exact same thing. However, the way you pick a winner for each individual matchup is by flipping a card and then reading the question corresponding to that category eventually narrowing down each region. You get points by picking the winner of each region, the championship matchup, and the ultimate winner. You can also score points by choosing another player and guessing which one they'll choose as their ultimate winner. Like I've said, if you've ever filled out a bracket you'll pick up how to play pretty easily.

There's two styles to play it though: you could either pick the answer that makes more sense or you could pick the answer that's funnier. If you know me at all you clearly know that I chose the funnier one. For example, one of the "location" matchups was between "night club" and "fitting room" and the question was "Where would you rather take a group of 8 year olds?" How can you turn down the comedic quality of fitting room? It's obviously the funnier answer but the group of . . . wait, what did I call them, sucknuts? . . . that we were playing with refused to take the funny approach. Well that's just fucking stupid. What's the point of playing if you're not going to choose the funnier answer? I bet they're the kind of people that don't automatically pick "Helen Keller" when they play Apples 2 Apples. Or they're the kind of people that enjoyed Transformers 2. Sucknuts. So overall I'd say that it's a game that could be fun depending on the group but the group I played with was super annoying. And as you know, I'm not easily annoyed.

Smoke #1: Optimistic potential with a side of annoying people. Being completely optimistic wouldn't have felt right.

-Slick

A Weekend Whirlwind of Opinions is . . .

what you're currently reading. It doesn't really make much sense to throw that in but I'm certainly not going to break the only tradition this blog's got going for it. And now my weekend in review:

Paranormal Activity
This movie was absolute shit. It certainly isn't as bad as Spanglish or The Terminal, but it's without a doubt one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Completely uninteresting. I'm not sure how anyone thought this piece of shit was scary. There's only one scene that could slightly potentially possibly maybe be considered scary and that's the last one, and even that wasn't that scary. I was thinking, "Oh I bet I know what's going to happen" But I didn't because what I was thinking was more fucked up than what actually happened. And I'm kind of a pussy. So fuck that.

Paintballing
I'd never been paintballing until yesterday. When we first walked in wearing our sweatpants and hoodies it was obvious that we were a little out of place. Some of those guys took that shit waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too seriously. It's a fuckin bizarro world. Apparently the nerdier you are in real life the cooler you are in the paintball world. It's like a real life World of Warcraft. No, I don't have my own gun. No, I don't have my own fucking camo uniform with some sort of lame nickname. No, I don't spend the time in between rounds working on my finger speed so I can fire ten paintballs per second. Why? Because at some point I want a girl to like me. Putting aside all that stuff it was really enjoyable and I imagine if you were playing with a group of buddies it would be incredibly fun. You want to go paintballing? Count me in. But if it's a surprise birthday present, do not tell Mark Martel.

District 9
This is not a new movie but I watched it again yesterday so here's a review. Paranormal activity fucking sucked so I didn't present my 3-question movie review. District 9 however is 3 question worthy. Question 1: Would I watch this movie again? Well I did, so yes. Question 2: Would I recommend that someone see this movie in theaters? Not really an option, but I personally feel that it was a very entertaining movie so I would suggest that you see this movie. Question 3: The all-important does it make sense? For the most part yes. There's a few details that make you think "I don't really understand why he would do that" but overall it's not flawed in any sense. Just don't watch it with Mark Martel because he managed to ruin the movie with only one sentence. ONE. That's fucking impressive, you know, if it wasn't your first time watching it. Not a great day for Martelly.

And now some quick opinions:
1. Dunkin Donuts: If I ask for French Vanilla do not give me Hazelnut. I know what the difference is you fucktard.
2. Metro: A pretty shitty movie from 1997 featuring Eddie Murphy and the rogueishly handsome Michael Rappaport. But don't bother watching. Not that you were going to.
3. Andy Roddick: He's a good looking guy but he's not that good looking. Not since Tom Brady has there been an athlete whose looks are so vastly overrated. Also, I heard he's a 4.5/10 in the sack.
4. Tim Burton: Alice in Wonderland looks like absolute shit. Stop working with Johnny Depp and stop making movies that have your signature bullshit look to them. You're worse than the Geico cavemen. Get a new fucking gimmick. Asshole.
5. The Superbowl: I wish Roger Goodell would stop picking the winner and just let them play for the championship.
6. Stealing beer glasses from bars: What? Me? No, I brought this one from home.

-Slick