b e e f e n c h i l a d a d o t c o m

So Christmas has come and mostly gone. It was a good one. Everyone played very nicely with each other here at Ft. Awesome. I taught The Boy how to leave out cookies and beer for Santa. I've had two folks mention they want to borrow that tradition, and I say run with it, people.

The Wife got overpriced silver in a box colored that magical blue-green hue what makes Jewish girls from NY salivate. Plus a gift card for high-end warpaint. I think. They could sell oral pleasure from cabana boys to bored housewives in that alleged warpaint store for all I know. Or want to know.

The Boy, of course, made out like a goddammned bandit. Seriously. His haul was ridiculous...even discounting what I had to do to get Constructicon Devastator under the effing tree. I don't want to talk about it. But I am buying myself a new gun for being such an indulgent dad. That's how it works, I think.

The point of this tirade is to talk about this year's WTF toy. There seems to be one each year. It's usually The Wife who winds up buying it. I try to buy what the kid asks for. She tries to buy that, plus what she thinks he might like. That probably makes her the better parent. Do you think so? Fuck you...although you might be right.

Anyhow, she bought him a Snake Eyes action figure from the new GI Joe flick. If you haven't seen it yet, do. Brunette Sienna Miller in leather and glasses has almost completely excised my librarian fixation. Did I say "excised?" I meant "personified." Anyhow. Snake Eyes was a badass in the movie, just as he has been since the A-Team was on prime time. But not this Snake Eyes. Let's discuss.



Note his size 164 boots. Why are they so big? To mess with my head is probably the correct answer, but I can come up with what is probably the official answer - which is to hide the batteries and speakers. Never mind the fact that you can fits speakers in greeting cards and the ones on this toy seem to be bigger than the headset on my first Sanyo-brand Walkman knockoff (circa 1983). Why does he need speakers? It ain't for all the talking, as Snake Eyes is mute. No, it's for far worse noises...by which I mean sound effects - but not the right ones. Press his dog tag and you hear “pow-pow-pow-pow” sounds. Like kung fu punches. Or rather, like a retarded(er) Jack Black making kung fu punching sounds. It also plays music clips. GI Joe music? No, shitty pseudo-Chinese, vaguely racist stuff…like from Hong Kong Freakin Phooey. Come to think of it, the sound effects were probably all lifted from Hong Kong Phooey as well. Also, when the sounds play, his visor lights up. Because Snake eyes had a giant glowing green visor on his face, right?

I think someone might have had some spare Kung Fu Panda happy meal toy chips lying around in a factory outside Guangdong and simply said “fuckit – the gwailos won’t notice." WRONG. Eat my all-American hatred, you bastard. Go back to putting melamine in baby formula and stop messing with my head on Christmas.

Now that I think about it…his hands are huge, too. This thing is some sort of evil homunculus. I can’t wait to get its ass to Goodwill. Jesus.

I have been living off mine for about the past three months. Reserves, that is. Of booze. not fat. Although I might be able to do so on the latter. At any rate, I have been drinking the bar stockpiles for a long time now. I finally had to restock on some items. It looks full again. Which makes me fear freak snowstorms less than I do already.

In clearing out the last of the stock what needed to be rotated, I came across a bottle each of last Year's Deschutes Jubelale and Sierra's Celebration Ale. The Deschutes offering fared far better than did the Sierra after a year hidden in my beer fridge, but neither was bad at all. The flavors held up well - especially in the Deschutes, where the malty bits got very nice.

More ass-kickingly rad, I broke down and cracked open the 2007-era bottle of Brooklyn Monster my sister-in-law brought me in her carry-on when she visited Christmas before last. Damn, I miss living within the range of Brooklyn Brewery's distributors. This was fantastic. So much so, that I went a-shopping for barleywines yesterday. I wound up with some from Utah and some from San Francisco. I am somewhat suspicious, yet cautiously optimistic. I see an advantage in these not being seasonal - specifically, I can let a few ripen during the year, take one out and give it the Pepsi Challenge vs. a recently-acquired fresh one. I am hoping that the constant production does not make for enough consistency to make it boring. The experiments will probably begin in the next day or two and continue through the new year. A tough schedule, but I earn my empirical data the hard way.

If you aren't reading Subnormality, you really should. It's currently just about my fave (semi)weekly. Check it out.