We've already selected our 12 Beers of Christmas and now we're going to select our 12 Movies of Christmas. Many lists include "It's a Wonderful Life", "Christmas in Connecticut", "Holiday Inn" and the movie it spawned "White Christmas", however I was not alive when they were released. So this list is going to be the Top 12 Christmas Movies Released in my Lifetime. (Spring 1983-Present)
We've sampled many Christmas beers this season and we have our select few that have made the cut. There are many other excellent Holiday Beers/Winter Warmers/Christmas Beers available, but these are simply the ones we've tried this year.
This week's holiday movie is one of a completely different sort. If you love holiday movies because they are a non-stop barrage of cheerfulness, delight and uplifting stories than Noel is not for you. However, if you say that you dislike Christmastime or that this is one of your least favorite times of the year this movie is for you. This movie portrays the holiday season as many people see it a complex web of connections, dysfunctional families, past issues and sorrow. While many love the holidays because we're surrounded by those we love, there are many who don't have their family around due to broken relationships, personal loss, or a life in solitude. It is those stories that Noel takes a deeper look into. 
Last week we started the Christmas season early by beginning a month-long series of Christmas music featured in our Music Monday slot. Last week we featured a more worldly-sounding record, this week we're featuring a soulful, jazzy Christmas album. If you missed last week's post, we highlighted Bela Fleck & The Flecktones' Grammy Award Winning album, Jingle All the Way. This week we feature "A Jazz & Blues Christmas" a CD compilation put together by Putumayo World Music. 
Like clockwork, every Christmastime we all break out our favorite holiday movies, snuggle together under a warm blanket, crank up the heat and relax on the couch. For each of us those movies can differ greatly, however there are a handful of classics that the majority of us can't get enough of. You could be helping Ralphie decode Little Orphan Annie's message, aiding Kevin in protecting his house against the 'Wet Bandits', or you're joining Tiny Tim in wishing, "Merry Christmas, Everyone!". Either way we all love to throw on "A Christmas Story", "Home Alone", or one of eight versions of Charles Dickens' novel "A Christmas Carol".
Last week I highlighted the plethora of breweries in San Diego County and mentioned that I was planning on visiting several of them. Well we're back to highlight the 48 different San Diego beers we sampled during our time in Ron Burgundy's hometown. Known for their aggressively hoppy beers, San Diego County breweries have been taking awards for years and more importantly been recognized as one of the hottest brewing spots in the World. 
Even though December isn't here yet, we're like Black Friday shoppers and we're starting a bit early. Throughout the month of December we will be highlighting different Christmas albums that we think you'd enjoy. First up, Bela Fleck and The Flecktones with Jingle All the Way. Creating a unique worldly Christmas disc, Bela Fleck, well-known banjoist collaborated with many artists for his 2008 release. According to a press release from his website, "Flecktones With Guest Elves Edgar Meyer, Andy Statman & Tuvan Throat Singers ‘The Alash Ensemble’ Contribute Renditions Of Everything From Bach To Rudolph, With Tributes To Joni Mitchell & Vince Guaraldi."
Sandra Bullock stars as quirky cruciverbalist (crossword puzzle writer) Mary Horowitz in the new movie All About Steve. She lives at home with Mom and Dad who continually put her on dead-end blind dates with their friend's sons, most of which are far less than stellar prospects. Enter Steve (Bradley Cooper), a National news cameraman who is good looking, smart, and witty. Only problem is, Steve thinks she's wacko, and ditches on their blind date without having driven even an inch towards dinner. 
Happy Turkey Day everyone! Today is a day of hanging out with family, eating awesomely home-cooked meals, and taking the now famous tryptophan power nap. 
As I've noticed this year, Thanksgiving seems to be the forgotten holiday. As usual, the retail stores were out in full effect for the Halloween season. Pumpkins, candles, costumes, candy were out in force in Mid-October. However joining them this year were Christmas items that in the past have remained in the stockroom until the day after Thanksgiving. Somehow Thanksgiving has turned into the Holiday that Time Forgot this year. Now as the Thanksgiving holiday approaches we're inundated with Christmas commercials, holiday sales and even an early release for Disney's new 3-D spectacular A Christmas Carol. As much of a Christmas lover as I am, I think I'm going to take my time and enjoy the holiday that has always been in between Halloween and Christmas, Thanksgiving.
One doesn't often think of San Diego when someone says beer, but you should be. San Diego is America's Premier Beer City offering 33 breweries throughout all of San Diego County. Known for the super-hoppy beers, San Diego County breweries are quickly making a name for themselves. At this year's Great American Beer Festival, Pizza Port-Carlsbad received the Large Brewpub and Large Brewpub Brewer of the Year. You name the style of beer and it is being brewed by one of the many breweries in San Diego County.
The whole purpose of this weekly post is to inform our viewing audience of new and not-so-well-known artists. Well today we are educating ourselves as we were completely unaware of today's post until we began researching it. With three simple words I located today's musical rising star, BEST-NEW-ARTIST. Today's feature is the reigning 2009 Grammy Award Winning Best New Artist, and winner of the Grammy's Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. 
Arguably one of the most advertised films of the years, Pirate Radio provides some harmless fun at the cinemaplex that hasn't been found at the box office in a couple years. Pirate Radio, or as it is known throughout the rest of the world, "The Boat That Rocked" provides a soundtrack of the most important record releases of the late 60's while fusing together laughter, camaraderie, and a unique sense of isolationism. 
The haze of the holidays, coupled with minimal content, has caused us to post less than average recently. We're working hard to ensure solid material throughout the rest of the year. In the meantime, if you aren't, please follow our Facebook feed. We post there more frequently providing you with interesting links, topics and comments that we felt weren't good enough to post here. We hope to be back at a standard daily posting rate next week.
My friend Scooter has invited me to contribute to this blog, and I am happy oblige. First, let me make one thing clear: I have never blogged before. The very word "blog" conjures up strange thoughts in my mind. It sounds fecal to me. "You wouldn't believe the size of the blog I just dropped in there." Furthermore, I firmly believe that opinions are like assholes: everyone has one and they usually stink. So why would anyone give a damn about my perspective? It's a mystery to me, but here we are, so here we go.
This week's Streaming Sunday feature is a movie about heavy metal legends. No it's not the story of Cannibal Corpse, Metallica, Pantera, Megadeth or likely any metal band you can name off. It's the story of aging rockers Anvil. They hit it big for a split second during the 80's touring with bands like The Scorpions, Whitesnake, and Bon Jovi.
I'm a fan for life. A sports fan that is. I love sports, all sport. I've often been heard stating "If there's a winner, I'll watch it." Hockey, Soccer, Football, Baseball, Basketball, Tennis, Curling, Darts, College Basketball if two people are competing and one is declared a winner I'm interested. I, like those at the E:60 offices, believe that sport transcends barriers, prejudice, and religion to show the finer attributes of the human nature. That's why I love sports, all sports. 
DUM-DUH-DUH-DAH . . . better late than never, right??? More than 2 years after the founding of the Scooter and Keon blog, after having been called out by Scooter noting that the blog had Keon Clark but no Keon Weigold…..after Scooter pretended I had written on the blog by posting the synopsis of a conversation we had had discussing our Australian Open favorites...and after Scooter finally gave up and renamed his blog, deleting my name from the title...Keon has finally arrived and written a blog entry. Maybe now that I finally broke down and posted something, maybe I will become the regular contributor that Scooter intended that I should be back at the founding of this blog.
We travel to France once again this week to get our first ever Weird Wednesday post. The first ever post mixes a little bit of 'Mad About Music Monday' with our old 'Website Wednesday' to create today's entry. We'll feature a website that will cure at least 15 minutes to a half-hour of boredom, minimum, and make you feel like a musical genius in the process. You'll make Justin Timberlake, T-Pain & Kanye all look like fools by the time you're done too.
The French band Phoenix kicks off the first week in November. Coming out of the same scene in France as Air and Daft Punk did, Phoenix have that similar 'ultra-cool' vibe going on with them. They've released four studio albums, the first "United" in 2000. That album featured the chic dance song 'If I Ever Feel Better'. Their newest album "Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix" is being critically acclaimed everywhere. 
Direct from NHL Online comes their one-hour special "50 Years Behind the Mask" taking an in-depth look at the history of the hockey goalie mask. Dan Pollard hosts a special first aired Sunday, November 1st, the 50th Anniversary of the first time a goalie wore a mask in a NHL game. It was 50 years ago to the day, when Montreal Canadiens goalie Jacques Plante placed the mask over his face and skated on the ice. During the game, while playing without a mask, he was hit with a puck and need the mask to continue to play in net. This documentary talks in far more detail about the night Jacques Plante daringly dashed onto the ice wearing his now famous mask.
This past Thursday night the FX Network unveiled their all new series, "The League". The cast features a handful of recognizable comedians but is concocted by mostly unknown actors. The series is about a Fantasy Football league and the men who participate in it. It follows their lives and show hows Fantasy Football affects them in different ways. The first episode, 'The Draft' is about just that, their Fantasy Draft. This pilot episode hilariously follow five friends showing various degrees of devotion to their "League".
MAPLE LEAFS (1-7-2) at SABRES (7-1-1)
I have begun bicycling again in San Francisco. I never feel more alive in this city than when I am in motion from it. Zipping by through the Sunset neighborhood (South West SF just under the park for you out of towners) I live for the almost dying several times on my commute dodging the many cars that seem to mindlessly almost kill anyone without there whits several times in just a moment. I have dodged cars to have them almost hit someone else., but that's not what this blog is going to be about.
Did you know that Upstate New York has a brewing corporation of its own that spans three continents, and includes several notable North American brands? North American Breweries based in Rochester, New York is exactly that. While they don't own as many brands as AB-InBev or SAB Miller they still command a significant market share while remaining majority American owned, which neither of those behemoths can claim. They own and operate Dundee Ales & Lagers, Labatt USA, and Genesee Brewing Company. 
In likely one of the most advertised movies of the year, hides a hilarious gem that is both romantic comedy, buddy flick, and picture perfect travel movie. The film was shot on-location in Bora Bora, French Polynesia at the St. Regis 100-villa resort. This ensemble cast includes; Vince Vaughn, Jason Bateman, Jon Favreau, Faizon Love, Kristin Davis, Kristen Bell, and Jean Reno.
Sure, there's the European Football in Europe but American Football? I really don't like that they're trying to have teams travel across the pond and play. There is no way that these teams are performing to their maximum. I mean is there any way that Tom Brady will do half as well as last week? (That's an obviously loaded question) But kidding aside this is ludicrous. I support games played in Mexico and Canada, technically those places are in the Americas, but not London. Just because certain NFL markets can't sellout is no reason to force our players overseas and risk their path to the Super Bowl. 
We took a minor hiatus last week to relax and enjoy the beautiful weather and tinker with some of our daily posts. We've added some new features to our blog and will be unveiling more as they become available. New to the blog is Reactions. After each blog post is a set of reactions you can select, a little like Facebook's 'like' feature. We have Funny, Interesting, Awesome, Cool, & Weird, this provides readers to post a comment without writing out a message in the comment field. Also we're beginning to feature Jump Breaks. This allows us to have shorter articles on the homepage of the blog and to create more interaction within our blog pages. Click on ENTRY CONTINUES HERE >>> to view the article.
Anybody that may know me, probably is aware that I am not the biggest fan of organized religion. I`suppose that might be a little strange considering the topic for today is on the Trappists. Trappists, who are part of a Roman Catholic order abide by the very strict rules set forth by Saint Benedict who lived in the 500's AD in Italy. These philosophies and rules are intriguing as they follow an almost extreme sense of seclusion and solitude. They live a life mostly in silence, speaking only when necessary. Most of their time is spent between studying, prayer and work related activities. They are almost entirely self sufficient, as they are known to grow their own crops and live stock as well as produce many goods such as cheeses, breads etc. The ones that interest me the most are the ones that (you guessed it) brew beer!
In November of 1995 Alice in Chains released their self-titled album after reuniting with Layne Stanley after a brief hiatus from the band for rehab, and time for his UNREAL side-band Mad Season. (Oddly enough I've only recently first heard of Mad Season on SIRIUS' Lithium 24) The album "Alice in Chains" had three major single releases for this album. The best-selling and most well-known is 'Grind', accompanying were 'Heaven Beside You', and 'Again'.
O-O-O-bama. Seems to be the man of the new millennium these days. To be honest, he's not doing such a bad job now is he? First of all, the first 100 days in office was like sex. All we could do was stare and oogle. I personally was drooling. Here's the thing about his first one hundred days, there were a lot of reversals from the previous administration and some big promises. He certainly had some large shoes to fill, actually, he brought some new, large, shoes to the table. Health care, Guantanamo bay, Iraq/Afghanistan/North Korea/The rest of the World, climate change, apparently the 2016 Olympics (which I say, if Chicago really wants some Olympics, give them the Special ones...) and whatever else happens during the presidency, for instance, getting a cop and a professor together for a beer. Anywho, there's a lot going on that have all been placed in front of that one man. It's pretty intimidating. Thank god he has a lot of people to help him... wait. No. The people who are supposed to be helping this process, the select few people who are to represent us more individually, Congress, seems to be in a world of their own.
This year Guinness & Company brewery at St. James Gate in Dublin, Ireland turns 250 years old. In 1759 Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000 year lease on the unused St. James Gate Brewery and ten years later he exported his first barrels of Guinness beer. Fast forward 250 years and you get to 2009 and the 250th celebration of Guinness. 
To begin this, the second week of October we have a special instrumental group for you to enjoy. Rodrigo y Gabriela is an acoustic duo hailing from Mexico City but finding residence in Dublin, Ireland. If that move seems interesting to you you should hear their style. They first met in a thrash metal band in Mexico City drawing heavily from the world of metal music. Mix in their Latin background with some Spanish and Mexican styles and top it all off with some techniques picked up while performing on the streets of Ireland and you get the unbelievable duo of Rodrigo y Gabriela. 
For two weeks in a row we have a Saturday post, HURRAY! To kickoff this weekend we'll be enjoying a Prank War between two College Humor employees. Streeter and Amir are two of the higher profile employees of College Humor and if you follow their website at all you probably have seen them in skits or even seen a portion of this Prank War. 
This Friday we take you back to the late 90's once again, this time for some dance music. French techno geniuses Daft Punk burst onto the scene in '95-'96 with their hit single "Da Funk". Most people first came across the duo of Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter with their 1997 international hit "Around the World," but I got in on the ground level. Daft Punk is one of the very few artists that I can say that I knew of before they hit it big time. I owned both the single from "Da Funk" (which is the CD lost and topic of today's post) and their first album 'Homework,' way before "Around the World" hit MTV.
Believe it or not one of the four major North American sports just started their season, but you wouldn't know it because ESPN doesn't cover sports they don't have the rights to air. The NHL just began it's 92nd season in Stockholm, Sweden and Helsinki, Finland. For the third year in a row the NHL choose to begin its season in Europe attempting to market the league to an international audience, much like the NFL has done with Mexico. The marquee event for this season will the Winter Classic to be held at Fenway Park on New Years Day 2010 with the Boston Bruins hosting the Philadelphia Flyers. This will be the third season that the NHL plays an outdoor game at an alternate sport's stadium.
The Great American Beer Festival (GABF) is held annually in Denver, Colorado. It began in 1982 by Charlie Papazian, a nuclear engineer, homebrewer, and current president of the Brewers Association who hosts the Great American Beer Festival.
To kick off this first week of October we have the newest work from the Grammy Award winning jazz trumpeter Terence Blanchard. He is a New Orleans native releasing his second New Orleans themed album post Hurricane Katrina. His first was A Tale of God's Will (A Requiem for Katrina). In this first album his band performed with the 40-piece Northwest Sinfonia, and took home the Grammy for Best Large Jazz Ensemble in 2007.
