Cocktail Confessions

This past weekend we celebrated my wife’s 40th birthday with a BBQ at our house. Not only was it a celebration of her birthday, but also a few of our neighbors birthday’s as well that all fell around the same time frame these past two weeks.

I’m not exactly sure how and when it happened, but it seems that our house is the goto house for parties as of late, since our other neighbor picked up his family and moved out to Texas last year.  See, we used to have block parties that spanned the end of our culdesac street that primarily centered out of his driveway and that of his neighbor. But now that they are gone, the street scene now tends to migrate down to our house. Not that I’m complaining. We enjoy entertaining and hosting cookouts. We have a corner house with nobody behind us, and a nice sized backyard. The only issue for me is I kinda do get tired of cleaning it up the next day. In that respect, I wish my neighbors volunteered their homes a bit more often.

So the main theme was somewhat latin in flavor. We decorated the house and backyard with Mexican themed streamers, banners, and cutouts.  Tacos, Spanish rice, ranch style beans, and margaritas were on tap, but these weren’t your typical tacos. I ended up making two different gourmet style types. The first were three large top sirloin steaks in a citrus-chipotle marinade that were cooked out on the grill and then cut up for easy service.

The second was a slow cooked pulled-pork shoulder that I had marinated in an achiote paste recipe served with roasted peppers and grilled pineapple. All the usual condiments were present: sour cream, shredded cheese, red onions, cilantro, various salsas and hot sauces. Monica happened to make a salad as well, and we had plenty of margarita’s, Jack Daniels, wine, and beer on hand.

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Listen to the podcast on how I prepared the pulled pork, and check out my earlier post on achiote paste and powder to know what it is and how to make. I can tell you it was delicious and I got some solid thumbs up from our guests.  I also discuss the preparation of roasted pasilla/pablano and Anaheim chili peppers (on the grill or in the oven), along with grilled pineapple.  I guarantee the added color and texture of fresh roasted peppers along with the sweet caramelized taste of fresh grilled pineapple bring these pork tacos full circle as a treat to the taste buds.

Monica did very well in the gift department as you can tell by the pictures, that is if you like alcohol as a gift. The more I think about it though, it may appear that by the amount of Crown Royal she received, one would think she has a problem. But I’m sure that Crown will be used up by everyone in future parties and I’m sure I’ll have a slug here and there.

As the night marched on, one of our friends Anthony found himself taking a liking to the Jack Daniels…perhaps a bit too much…and we had an entertaining ‘exit’ show as his wife (who drove) was rounding him up to leave.  There were plenty of hugs to go around initiated by Anthony, as well as multiple ‘good-byes’ and the almost wipe-out of our entertainment center which includes a 42″ plasma television, blu-ray player, stereo system, XBox and Wii gaming systems.

Even later when the natives got restless an impromptu session of Rock Band 2 broke out, with yours truly attempting to sing, and sing badly I did.  Girls took turns playing the drums and guitar and even singing.  Needless to say, there were plenty of pictures taken and all had a good time. 

The part at its peak was about 30 people strong, enjoying each other’s company, the outdoor fireplaces, drinks, jokes, games,and of course, food.  It wrapped up by 1:15am, and I did some preliminary cleaning until I finally crashed at 1:45.  The next day consisted of cleaning the house and resting.

Show Notes:

• Intro Song: Cumbia De Los Muertos (track 3) of the self-titled debut album, Ozomatli.
  

  Ozomatli

• Pulled Achiote Pork preparation along with roasted peppers and grilled pineapple.
• The Crown Royal Easter bunny.
• Anthony almost takes out the entertainment center.

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One of my closest friends, Albert Ihle, came over this past weekend to help me replant an earthbox he gave me over this past holiday season.  The past few months, this earthbox gift supplied a bountiful and rich bounty of lush and organic lettuce leaves.  With the original four heads that were planted (along with some parsley to boot), Monica and I had tons of green leaves for both salads and sandwiches with left overs to share.  Of course, being organic not only did they taste better and we knew they couldn’t be any fresher from our pickings, but they were chock full of vitamins

However, with the seasons changing from winter into spring, it was time to replant.  Al called me up and asked me what I may be interested in trying to grow this time around, and with the weather going to warm up soon and summer in just a few months away, I opted to go with some fresh chili peppers.  Monica and I enjoy entertaining with large BBQ’s with our friends, and since we also like Mexican dishes, I opted to buy a few jalepenos plants, some anaheim chilis, and cilantro.

It was a perfect 8 am morning roll call when Al showed up this past Saturday and with Bloody Mary’s in hand, we got down to business. What you see in these pictures is a what an earthbox looks like.  Albert and his wife Lisa have been growing many of their own produce for the last three years and we’ve tasted their homemade sweet marinara sauce, had numerous grilled veggies, and of course their own salads.  Click on the links yourself if you want to learn more about this way of planting and growing your own sustainable foods in your garden.

Earthbox example

What’s nice about this episode is that it is a great example of using the portable Zoom H2 recorder out in the field.  I recored approx. 50 minutes of straight audio which I got o edit down for your plreasure, all while learning about earthboxes and plenty of gardening and growing tips.  I also shot some video as well using a Kodak Playsport flash cam at the same time and I’m in the process of editing those for a future posting as well.  So not only can you enjoy this very educational podcast, with a few shots of vodka mixed in by yours truly, you’ll also eventually see some video clips as well.

Bloody Mary’s featured in this episode were made with Snug Harbor mix, winner of the ‘outstanding beverage’ award at the 1998 International Fancy Food Show.  What makes this Bloody Mary mix unique is it’s inclusion and blend of both clam juice and Chesapeake Bay Seasoning.  If you aren’t making a cocktail, try using it as a cooking sauce, maybe even a booster in Mexcian Ceviche.  You can find this online or unique liquor and gifts stores like Home Goods.  The bootles are 25oz in size and retail for approx $8.

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This episode was a little fun to do. I started off of a script that I had written out which I thought was pretty good and witty, but upon reading back into a portable recording device, just sounded stiff and un-natural. After a few additional attempts and not liking any of them, I decided to throw the script out the window and record free style…in one take.

The result is something that sounds more real and fluid, although like most, I needs to work on my “um’s” and “uh’s”.

In this episode I start off by talking about a dinner party I was recently invited to by my friend Jon, and avoiding a piano bar party that my wife attended that resulted in chaos (people throwing up, getting thrown out, loosing articles of clothing) to a posh little place called Hush in Laguna Beach, CA. It’s a swank place with very good food (I’d give it a 4.25 stars on a scale of 5), great atmosphere for an intimate dinner party or romantic evening with your significant other. They have a very cool bar that is relaxing on the eyes and a mellow vibe with top shelf liquor.  Hush is a small place, but sometimes smaller is indeed better, and it’s hard to put into words, but the aesthetics is akin to a mash up of modern art meeting an episode of Miami Vice.

Next off we end up at the local chapter of Long Beach’s, “Club Bounce“, which none of us was really prepared for.  This Laguna iteration can be found in a subterranean bar on PCH that doubles as The Main Street Bar.  What I and most of our party didn’t know is that this location is a gay and lesbian watering hole, and needless to say it was quite the eye opener.  I loosened up with some liquid encouragement in the form of Manhattans and ended up dancing the night away, even if I was just a piece of meat in an all girl mechanic mosh pit.  I did learn a few things the next day however: 1) I need to work on my cardio as I was totally out of breath at various points in the evening, 2) my club shirt was the most feminine article of clothing in the joint clearly labeling me as a ‘metrosexual’, 3) cheap whisky and heavy handed sweet vermouth equate to a serious next morning headache.

 - gallery coming soon -

I also finally saw the movie juggernaut that is know as Avatar, but in 2D.  It was good and I enjoyed it, but because maybe I didn’t see it in 3D or IMAX I’m not sure what all the hype was about.  In my personal opinion it wasn’t as good as people made it out to be, and I also understand why some critics call it ‘Dances with Wolves’ in space.  I saw a lot of other, shall we say ‘borrowed’ elements and ideas from World of Warcraft and the Star Wars franchise, especially ‘Return of the Jedi’.

Finally a few tidbits on some of the science fictions shows I’m currently watching such as Lost and FlashForward.

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Well, here it is, Episode 15.  I wish I could say I’m really happy with the outcome, but in my own humble opinion, it’s “meh” at best.  Why you ask?  Originally, I had sat down last weekend with my friend Brian Liles (yet again) and had made a sweet recording that was a good solid hour plus.  It could have easily been broken into two seperate Podcasts, and I think it was one of our best yet.  There was a myriad of interesting topics on the table as well as we had at least three to four craft beers in us each as we made it.

However, due to the fact that I hadn’t take the time to reboot my computer after some auto-installed patches from Microsoft prior to our recording, it seems that Audacity (my podcast recording software) somehow corrupted the data.  No matter how many times I tried to recover the orphan files after a failed save attempt, I just couldn’t resurect it.  As I say in this podcast, let that be a lesson to all you tech heads out there.  Always reboot your PC after critical patches are downloaded and installed.  I clearly should have known better, so I have no one to blame but myself.

Feeling somewhat pressed to have a new episode ready, I took my portable Zoom to work and made this recording on my lunch break while sitting in my car.  I’m happy with the audio quality, but as you’ll hear, there was really no set agenda for this one.  It’s about 40 minutes of me ranting on some of my political views, Howard Stern, and my upcoming business trip to Atlanta, GA.  Also, I was able to throw in a cocktail recipe, the ‘original’ Texas-tini (not my version from a few weeks back in which I thought I was so clever with the name), and a recipe for grilling artichokes.  Hence the title ‘Smorgasbord’.

In other news, I’m rapidly approaching my 40th birthday (8 days from this writing) and I am clearly having a mild midlife crisis.  I hope its not too evident in my recording, but I’ve been feeling a bit under pressure lately in various personal aspects: financial, work, trying to be a father to a teenage girl, etc. So perhaps that lends to my somewhat dour attitude in if you pick up on it.  Hopefully I’ll snap out of it soon because it really just doesn’t feel like me and I’m very aware of it.

I’ll work on the show notes and recipes contained within later if I get a chance, but suffice to say I will be out on business the next week (starting tomorrow) so I most likely won’t be making any updates here for at least a week. 

As I usually do, I try an pick an intro song that encapsulates either my mood or something that somehow pertains to the audio content of the episode.  Here, I chose “Take this Job and Shove it” by Johnny Paycheck.  I have two comments about this: 1) Yeah, I’m not gonna be quitting my job anytime soon, but the last few weeks, I really feel as if I’ve been holding back my frustration on various career related issues and I’m just not that happy overall, and 2) I really thought Johnny ‘Paycheck’ was a fake name and he was trying to cash in on the name Johnny Cash, especially when you have a song about a job and then shoving it.  Turns out, I was partially correct, as his real name was Donald Eugene Lytle.

Texas-Tini II

• 3 oz whisky (try a sweet or smooth blend like Crown Royal or Canadian Mist)
• 1.5 oz sweet vermouth
• 1/2 oz Blue Curacao (orange flavored liquer, but blue in color)
• Shake all three ingrediants over ice and pour in sugar rimmed martini glass, or mix all three in lowball glass over ice and skip sugar.

Grilled Artichoke

• 2 fresh artichokes, stems cut at least 1 inch from base.
• Place artichokes in pot of boiling water with the freshly squeezed juice of 1/2 lemon to reduce oxidation of leaves (prevents leaves from turning brown). (Optional: zest some of the lemon peel and add zest (to taste) to fresh mayo.  Mix, and chill in advance for dipping.  Lemon zest adds a nice fresh, flavorful kick to the mayo).
• Remove after 25-28 minutes of cooking, drain excess water, and let cool enough to handle.
• Preheat grill to medium-low heat/flame.
• With sharp knife, cut artichoke in half, lengthwise and remove choke/heart (purpleish center with bristles) with spoon.
• Brush halves with olive oil and season with kosher or sea salt and fresh ground pepper.
• Place flat side down on grill, cooking approx 2-3 minutes, then turn 45 degrees and cook additional 2-3 minutes or until nice grill marks appear.  In the last few minutes, ‘drizzle’ some quality balsamic vinegar over artichokes for additional flavor and color.
• Serve with fresh lemon zest mayo (above), and/or melted butter and garlic combo.

Show Notes

• Coming soon

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For anyone who likes a truly unique way of grilling or cooking very moist and flavorful chicken, I give you this podcast.

The very first time I saw this take on grilling chicken was around 2001-02 and I had seen it on FoodTV.  I was fascinated on the method and idea of both basting and cooking a chicken from the inside out using liquid, and in this case beer.  It looked simple enough and guaranteed to be a talking point amongst friends who see you pull the bird of the grill.

You’ll be amazed, if done correctly, how moist the chicken actually is, especially after sitting on the grill for hours.  And despite the fact it may look a bit complicated, it really isn’t at all.  The most caution I can give though…and I learned this from my own experience is to be very careful removing the can from the bird without adequately letting it rest and cool down juts a tad.  That can is hot, and the left over brew is basically boiling (it did just turn to steam after-all), and you can easily burn yourself.  Oh, and make sure you leave the bird on long enough to cook thoroughly….no matter how good it may look on the outside, you don’t want to get sick from raw chicken (I’ve done that as well, and it isn’t pretty by any means).

Don’t be afraid to experiment with various rubs and spices, and of course if you have fresh herbs liek rosemary or thyme, don’t be shy to try them out either.

Like I say in the episode, best enjoyed in the company of friends and can be paired with lighter wines or like beer.  Enjoy on a nice spring or summer day, get the tunes going, have some light side dishes and I promise you, if done semi-correctly, your friends will want to know how you made such a good main dish.

Show Notes:

• Intro music: “I am a man of constant sorrow” – Soggy Bottom Boys
• Recipe: Beer Can Chicken

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DJ Hero

Eh, well, not because I’m an advocate of throw away episodes, but once in a while it’s just kinda nice to put something out there to let the masses know you’re still alive and kicking.  It also helps in remembering how to craft and use technology so you don’t forget it so easily if you don’t do it too often.

Like most things that I really get excited and interested in, it appears that putting this podcast together is a bit harder than I first anticipated.  Not so much from a  technical aspect, but more of getting actual content down and getting guests to commit.  It’s been much more difficult than I ever would have surmised to get friends and neighbors to agree on a time to sit and chat, and every time it seems we plan on something it generally gets delayed for one reason or another.

That’s not so much the case in point here.  As I stated in my last post, I’ve been under the weather as of late.  I can’t remember the last time I has such a bad cough or case of bronchitis that has more or less just put me out on my butt.  My throat has been a bit raw and I’m all jacked up on various OTC medicines…none of which seem to be doing me much good by the way.  The nagging and uncontrollable hacking at all hours has been very frustrating to me, and while I’m not 100% right now, it seems I’m finally on the tail end of a good eight day cough fest.

Episode 13 is a bit short, clocking in at just about twenty one minutes and it just informs you up on a few recent things in my life

Stone Smoky Porter

like Christmas goodies such as DJ Hero, my new Blu Ray player, some movies and Netflix we’ve been watching (like season 1 of Dexter), and of course Stone Brewery Smoky Porter (5.9%).  Speaking of DJ Hero, that game is bad ass.  As a child of the 80’s and really into old skool hip-hop/rap and more current euro dance/techno, this game is right up my alley.  Some of my friends have laughed at me spinning a plastic turntable and making up DJ names for me, like DJ Wingman (thanks Chip).  I hope the game does well enough to spawn some additional DLC because I just love it.

Show Notes:

Intro – “Come Again” by Beastie Boys & Daft Punk (as heard on DJ Hero)

2:08 – Cornocopia of OTC drugs I’m taking including Emergen-C bullshit.

6:30 – This & that and a little fluff.

7:15 – Stone Brewery and porter talk.

8:05 – Blu Ray and movie talk (Star Trek, Paranormal Activity)

11:45 – Microsoft + Xbox RROD blues 

12:29 – Dexter: clean versus ‘R’ versions for Showtime and CBS

13:49 – Xmas continued + DJ Hero

18:39 – SkurvyMonekys.com podcast discussed

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Through the miracle of digital crack addiction phenom known as Facebook, I was able to recently reconnect with an associate I knew back in highschool some 20 years ago.  I learned that he has his own podcast over at teh website: SkurvyMonkeys.  A variety show chock full of music, comedy, and random musings between two dudes. 

I’m currently listening to the episode entitled ‘A Christmas to Drink by (part 2)’, and am very impressed.  This episode has some particularly funny holiday themeds music ranging from Disney to The Kinks.  A nice change from the ever so predictable Howard Stern crapola.

Production sounds a helluva lot better than my own futile attempts (Erik, don’t mind if I hit you up on some podcasting questions at a later date).  You can find their podcast on iTunes and I’ve included the links (skurvymonkeys.com and blendedmonkeys.com) in the right margin right here.  Anyway, go check them out!

Site Maintenance:

• MapPress upgraded to v1.5.8.9
• Blubrry Power Press upgraded to v1.0.4

It’s been a long time coming, but I spent a lot of the day yesterday editing this podcast episode into something I really wanted it to be.  It took a bit longer than expected to put this together as I was looking for the perfect music (thanks Limewire) for the introduction to set the mood and a great tie in to an overall theme. 

I also kind pushed myself here at a technical level in editing.  First, I used my portable Zoom H2 in the field for the first time.  It worked pretty well, although I did misplace the manual, so I had a few hiccups at first.  I have to work on the microphone gain.  For my initial recording I had set it to medium, and although we were sitting only a few feet from it with no other background noise, the recording seemed somewhat fainter than I expected, so I boosted it in Audacity.  It also took longer than I expected to transfer the raw MP3 from the Zoom to my PC.  This Podcast has a total of 3 mono tracks and 2 stereo tracks that I spliced together, remixed into a single track (to help save on bandwidth and space), faded out some entrance music and for the first time added an end trailer, and I’m pretty happy with the result seeing this is the most complex editing I’ve done thus far.

I also used Limewire for the first time, trying to find the perfect lead in bumper.  I had a specific song in mind, and I actually own a clean copy of the song somewhere but couldn’t find the CD, so I opted to download from the wild-wild-web.  The thing is, you never know exactly what you are going to get in quality or length, and sometime the descriptions don’t always match what you’re looking for so there is a few trial by fire attempts to get the right track.  Anyway, in this case, I chose “Grim Grinning Ghosts“, better known as the overall soundtrack for Disney’s Haunted Mansion.  It appears in a few various incarnations and pressed a few times in some rare LP’s and CD’s many of which are now out of print.  To me it was worth it.  For those that really like the Haunted Mansion, here’s an interesting and detailed site about the ride, it’s history, the story behind it, and its look throughout the various theme parks: DoomBuggies.com.

Also appearing in this episode is yet another libation.  The website is called ‘Cocktail Confessions’ for a reason, and so it keeping that dream alive I bring you Jack’s Pumpkin Spice Ale from Michelob.  It’s a seasonal beer (fall) that clocks in at 5.5% alcohol with hints of cloves, nutmeg and allspice.  As I explain in the podcast, this years batch didn’t taste all that ‘pumpkiny’ to me, and I might suggest you try Buffalo Bills Pumpkin Ale or even Blue Moon’s, Harvest Moon Pumpkin Ale.  Both of these have a richer pumpkin and spice taste, and there are plenty of others.  If you know of any good ones you’d like to suggest, please drop me a line.

The meat and potatoes of this podcast however is the interview I recorded with my grandfather Harold.  He recently just turned 91 years old, and I kinda wanted to get some time with him before it was too late.  We’re all lucky he is still around after surviving being a tail gunner in a B-17 during WWII, having had open heart surgery, a pacemaker installed and a few other medical issues.  He’s still going strong…at least mentally.  He’s 100% Italian, being born here but his parents were immigrants.  I initially wanted the recording to be about his days being a master carpenter and working on the early builds of the Tiki Room, some of the facades on Main Street, and other contributions he made at the park, but after 40 minutes of great stories, I realized I wasn’t recording properly.  So instead of having him rehash everything all over, we just segued into his early days growing up in Wakefield, Michigan then eventually moving out to Anaheim, CA.  The actual recording was almost an hour long, and for this podcast I decided to break it up into a smaller segment I’m calling part 1, which is approx. 20 minutes long.

Finally my garage door died a loud and expensive death last week.  We had to buy a new one, and thus opted for the Heritage 3000, triple layer door: steel + insulation + steel.  It looks very nice, much quieter than the old one, and will hopefully help in reducing both our cooling and heating costs in the long run.  The really funny thing to me is how my neighbors have reacted.  To me, it’s just a garage door.  It’s white, it opens, it closes and does what any other garage door was designed for.  However, many of the men on my street have taken a very keen interest in its look, its operation, and overall functionality.  A real ‘Tim the Tool Guy Taylor’ moment where they all had to check it out and kick the tires per-se.  I personally found it very amusing that the men were all into it as much as they were.  In the end, it’s still a garage door.

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After some self-induced procrastination as of late, I finally sat down earlier this week to record this ‘filler’ episode for you all.  I’ve been kind of disappointed with myself as of late allowing my recordings to fall slightly by the wayside and it’s actually surprising how much I kinda forgot in producing an episode.  That includes the formatting, the folders, the uploading, fiddling aith Audacity, etc.  I made a few mistakes along the way, but it all came back pretty quickly and I hope to get back on track soon enough.

Episode 11 is completely unscripted, meaning, I had no idea what I wanted to talk about or where I was going with my blathering.  I just sat down, turned on the mic, and went at it hot.  Before I knew it, I was at the 30 minute mark or raw recording and didn’t feel as if I stumbled too much. 

In this episode I speak briefly about a new hobby of mine I stumbled into not too long ago and really found myself enjoying it: Model railroading, and my foray into n-scale structure modeling.  I then talk a bit about my experiences in multi-level marketing and how my wife has recently jumped on the pyramid band wagon and my chagrin about it.  But maybe she’ll prove me wrong (I hope she does actually) and make some money at it.  Finally, I attended the inaugural Long Beach Comic Con this past weekend, took some pictures, bought some artwork and action figures, and my overall critique of it….hopefully it is better next year.

Show Notes:

Intro – “Kryptonite” by 3 Doors Down as a tie-in to the comic con.

 1:00 – Powerade cocktails: Grape Powerade and Rangpur gin – good.  Grape and Jack Daniels – bad.

 1:52 – My mid life crisis in defining yet another new hobby for myself and my foray into the world of N-scale train modeling.

 7:50 – Multi-level marketing scheme’s and the wife’s recent plunge into it.

15:48 – Long Beach Comic Con – My critique and observations of has-been stars, artist alley, the worthless DC Nation panel, and organized chaos. (See pics in gallery).

34:10 – Wrap up.

Long Beach Comic Con Gallery

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Map

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This episode/entry was fun to do for a few reasons: we (that is Brian Liles and I), had already had a few pitchers of Sam Adams Summer Ale under our belts that we enjoyed over at a beautiful day at Cook’s Corner in Trabuco Canyon, CA.  Then as we proceeded to records this, we had a surprise visit from Chip Gahagan of Smogtown who popped on by for a few minutes, and lastly we discuss a little bit of G.I.Joe: The Rise of Cobra movie as well. Listening back to make show notes was a little embarrassing as I caught myself being tongue tied and repeating myself multiple times.

Cook's Corner

So to start with Brian of Brians4×4adventures.com, or friend Scott W and myself headed out to Cook’s Corner (Wikipedia entry) for a little Sunday afternoon beer bonding.  The short synopsis of the place is as such: Built by Andrew Jackson Cook around 1884, the original building was meant to supply local miners as a mercantile and a few years later a place to eat as well.  It survived the prohibition era and was converted into a bar.  In 1970 a motorcycle accessory shop owner from Santa Ana bought the property and publicized it as a place for motorcycle clubs to enjoy.  It has changed hands once again a few years back and actively participates in the promotion of several charity motorcycle rides.  It’s now considered a historic landmark and is enjoyed by numerous social clubs and O.C residents.

It’s a great place to spend the afternoon, especially the weekends where one can typical witness 200+ motorcycles parked out front.  They have a very large outdoor patio area that has seen many improvements the last few years including new picnic tables, umbrellas, outside bars (three portable at last count), and a place for local merchants to sell various motorcycle accessories.  They have a small kitchen that turns out various burgers, tacos, and finger foods along with a inside band stage and the occasional outside band as well.  I’ve been coming here for at least 7 years now, and it really never gets old.  I have yet to run into a bad situation with a ‘biker’ and quite the contrary all the ones I have met or spoken to have been pretty personable for the most part.

Music for this episode

I’ve listened quite a few bands there over the years, and while I’m not a huge fan of classic rock they have the occasional bluegrass or jazz band out there and it always sounds good under the Southern California weather and sun with a couple of pitchers of beer and friends.

In this podcast episode Brian discusses his recent FJ Crusier trip across Canada and into Alaska that he took part in with his friend Luke from Radrod57.com.  Head over to Brian’s site for some gorgeous high quality pictures he took and read some of his continuing exploits.  You can ever read more over at Luke’s page as well.  Makes me wanna cash everything in, grab an RV, and do a roadtrip across America myself and hit up some hidden bbq joints, some town festivals and make some new acquaintences in local camp grounds.

Baroness

Finally we discuss G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra movie (hence the ‘criminals’ in my title).  For those of you who grew up on the property that made it famous back in the 80’s, you may be slightly disapointed in some of the character origin reboots in this 2009 feature film.  Being a comic book purist in my own right, and being a huge fan of Larry Hama’s creativity for the Hasbro line and the yarns he spun for Marvel, I have a few problems with the treatment that gave Cobra Commander, Zartan and the Baroness.  Also the Ripcord/Scarlett love angle and the CC/Baroness sibling reveal really bothered me.  But if you can put those issues aside ,(and the accelerator suits) then this was a pretty darn good matinee action-comic movie.  Good fight scenes, neat technology, grand in scope….but clearly sets up and demands a sequel.  I mean it is called ‘The Rise of Cobra’ after all, and we just get a taste of things to come towards the last 15 minutes of this movie.

The one that did surprise me however was the Joe’s dropping the “Shit” bomb as gratuitous as they did.  There were a couple of things in the movie that may have made the old cartoon watchers smile, like “Knowing is half the battle.” and the of course the reference to the “Kung Fu grip”.

Show Notes

• Bumper Music: “My ‘98 Old’s” – Public Enemy, Yo-Bum Rush the Show (1987)
• 00:35 – Introductions
• 01:10 – Discuss Cook’s Corner memories and atmosphere.
• 07:55 – Brian talks about recent trip with Luke across Canada, including camping, camera’s, and food.
• 29:59 – Brian gives us an update on his incredible wieght loss thus far.
• 33:30 – We talk G.I. Joe the movie (lore vs current re-imagining), Transformers, comics

Cook’s Corner

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