Mad About Music Monday - Bela Fleck & The Flecktones: Jingle All the Way

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."

Streaming Sunday - All About Steve

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.

Now that I've provided you more backstory than I was provided prior to watching this film, I'll leave you to fend for yourself this last Saturday in November. (EEK! One more month before yet another year is gone!) Sideways' Thomas Haden Church co-stars and The Hangover's Kim Jeong also stars in this week's entry of All About Steve.

BUY NOTHING DAY!

Ad from the 2006 Buy Nothing Day

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

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.

Thanksgiving seems to the forgotten holiday this year. Smushed in between Halloween and Christmas, apparently itself doesn't generate enough consumer spending for anyone to give some respect or awareness in the media. Sure, sure there are the "Day-After Thanksgiving Sales" but those are considered the first day of Christmas shopping and the first day of the Christmas season, not a continuation of Thanksgiving. 

Weird Wednesday - Best Thanksgiving Websites

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.

So as we approach Thanksgiving in 2009 (only 40 or so days before we supposedly "make contact") I thought we'd take a look at the best websites based around Thanksgiving:

Tuesday Brewsday - America's Finest Beer City: San Diego

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. 

Today, Our First Live Chat

Mad About Music Monday - Adele

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.

Streaming Sundays - Pirate Radio

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.

Holiday Haze

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.

Have a Cough? Try This Natural Remedy

Have a Cough? Try This Natural Remedy

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Guest Blogger Thursday - RMaynard's Musical Chairs

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.

Recently I decided that after almost 15 years of dedicated playing I was going to hang up the guitar. When I announced this to my friends I was met with shock, disapproval, words of encouragement to continue playing, and disbelief. Nobody seemed to be able to understand why I would do such a thing. I don't know if I can fully explain what led me to that point, but the best analogy I have come up with is this: Being able to play the guitar the way I can without achieving any real level of success or fame is like having the keys to a Corvette and not being able to get it out of the parking lot. So I decided to get out and try to enjoy the walk. Make sense?

Streaming Sundays - Anvil! The Story of Anvil

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.

Well they haven't hit the big time since then and they've been hitting the road ever since. This is the story about playing music to play music NOT to make money. In fact on a lot of the band's former gigs THEY paid to travel there only to be shafted by the promoter after the show, receiving far less than promised. Their story is truly a story of friendship, passion and commitment.

Fan For Life: Louis Amundson

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.

But this isn't a love story about me and the sports that I enjoy watching. It's a love story about me and the ATHLETES I love to follow. It takes a special kind of athlete for one to like them regardless of jersey, fan following, sport notoriety, or even contract existence. I have a handful or so of these athletes that I consider myself a Fan For Life.

Guest Blogger Thursday - Keon & How to Fix the Economy (Part 1)

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.

Weird Wednesday - Incredibox.fr

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.

Tuesday Brewsday - Beer vs. Wine (3-Part Saga)

**** NOT ORIGINAL CONTENT - TAKEN FROM THE STONE BLOG ****

Thought you might like to learn about the results of the recent epic “Beer vs. Wine Dinner” at the Rancho Bernardo Inn’s highly regarded “El Bizcocho” restaurant.
First, a short recap of what the dinner was all about….

• The recent October 16, 2009 dinner was the third in a 3-year series.

• The premise is simple: A multi-course fine-dining dinner served with a specially selected wine to go with each course, as well as a specially selected beer. All the attendees of the dinner get a specially prepared card to mark their preference for each course – either the beer or the wine. At the end of the dinner, the results are tallied and the one winner is announced based on the total number of votes for the evening.  “Wine” was represented by Sommelier and Certified Wine Educator Barry Wiss of Napa’s Trinchero Family Estates.  Barry has flown down from Napa each year to participate in the challenge.  Neither I nor Barry had any say in the creation of the menu — each year it was presented to us with a “Gentlemen, here you go…do your best!”

• In October 2007, “Beer” won. However, it was very close. Beer took three of the courses and wine won three. Yet, beer edged out with more total votes during the evening. This dinner was captured on film and an entertaining documentary was created by our friends at Redtail Media (the same team that created the viral I Am A Craft Brewer video with me). The “Beer vs. Wine 2007″ doc is on the promotional Stone DVD. If you haven’t found the opportunity to view it yet, grab the DVD and watch it. I think you’ll find it quite well done and entertaining. If you haven’t gotten one yet, it can be obtained at the Stone Store either at the brewery, or online here.

Mad About Music Monday - Phoenix

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.

NHL Goalie Mask Turns 50

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.

Streaming Sundays - FX's The League

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".