My blog n'at

I had actually bought this the day it was released and have been slacking on getting it online. Truth is if a fast food restaurant comes out with a new burger I’m going to try it. I’m a sucker for burgers and have a great weakness for them. Take note: that’s the way to my heart. Well that and a stellar beer.

I first heard about this new venture from Wendy’s on Facebook when 1993 BET Rising Star artist Dave Hallewell posted about it. Come on, how can you not want something named “Dave’s Hot n Juicy” in your mouth? Apparently I wasn’t alone as the Wendy’s in Moon Township was packed (though I think I was the only person who ordered it).

The meal you see pictured was a medium sized #1 which is the 1/4 lb Hot N Juicy ($6.52 including tax). When I first opened the wrapping it was a big gooey mess and looks like my 2.5yr old son put it together. You don’t go to fast food for presentation but a little effort might have made it easier to eat. This could get interesting.

Drink: refreshing
Fries: salty, greasy and delicious. The way McDonalds used to be.
Burger: its the 3rd string version of a Whopper

Here is the commercial description of what to expect with Dave in your mouth.

New Premium Toppings – crinkle cut pickles, sweet red onion, thick hand sliced tomatoes.

Juicier, Thicker Beef – 100% North American, fresh never frozen beef, hot off the grill

Butter Toasted Buns – Soft, warm and topped with real butter 

When I took my first bite into Dave’s Hot n Juicy the butter on his buns made an instant impression. Soft, warm and buttery like the name suggests. Then came the explosion of flavor as I had Dave’s Hot n Juicy in my mouth. I almost choked but fought through and swallowed it down.

Go ahead and zoom in on that sandwich for a minute; this was after I put it back together. Look familiar? Take away the mustard, make it a size bigger and you have a Whopper. Size matters. I could probably down 2 of these no problem. I did like that this burger has much better meat flavor than their standard square grease bombs. The clincher for me was the pickles which reminded me of butter pickles grandma used to make. Cheese was good. Basically you have your standard backyard cookout burger.

Would I buy again? Not sure. $6.52 is a lot when I can get a Whopper for close to that price. Its worth a shot though and you should try it at least once. I wish this had bacon on it; you’d have a completely different review. Bacon would make this amazing.

The latest issue of Craft Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh’s ONLY publication dealing with craft beer) has been making its rounds and while I could tell you that this is a must read (which it is) or how you won’t find some snobbish pricks writing (which you won’t) and that the staff is filled with people you would gladly have a beer with (which you should) there is something that I want you to see with this issue.

Take a look at page 10 (page 6 of the pdf).  Don’t have the issue? no problem, its a pdf online also available here.

So scroll down and check out those 2 handsome young men. OK, I’m young, sickpuppy is old as shit or so I like to tell him.

Things to note about this picture:

1) At most major beer fests we have a lot of pictures taken of us. Of those at The Big Tap In THIS is the one the makes the magazine. The one where the finger is involved. Come to think of it every picture of us has it somewhere either by us or a fan.

2) It looks like I have puppy bent over the barrel. Actually wait, I may have.

3) I absolutely love this picture and it sums up why I’ve loved doing Should I Drink That for over 5 years. We have fun at every show, our fans are absolutely amazing, I get to talk about something I’m passionate about and I get to do stuff like this.

If you’re in the Pittsburgh area I highly suggest getting this magazine. I’ve spoken to the main man Tim many times and words cant describe his passion for craft beer and making Pittsburgh aware of the kickass things going on around here.

It’s free, you have no excuse not to get it if you live locally. Go to Bocktown or your favorite beer store and pick it up.

I was listening to some Ozzy earlier today on SiriusXM when Goodbye to Romance came on and of course now I can’t get it out of my head.

We figured it out last weekend that someone in this house is at work every day of the week now. Its almost a necessity now since we sat down and figured out all of the upgrades to the house we want to make, vacations to take and weddings out of town to attend. Diapers, milk and formula seem to keep going up and apparently the govt. frowns upon not feeding or clothing kids. No idea why

Weekends are a tricky time for us since a good block of each day is dedicated to just watching the kids. Its as though we flip roles when Saturday gets here and that leaves very little time to get any housework done or plans to go outside the border of the house. I’ve been working late hours recently and daylight is getting shorter so trying to squeeze in even cutting grass is next to impossible. Doesn’t help I screwed up my shoulder helping the neighbor with her yard so watching me cut grass can get quite comical.

Does it suck? Yes. Do I accept it graciously? Well yeah, I bitch because I have every right to but its well worth it because weekend time is dude time with my boys and if I didn’t have it I’d miss out on things like this…

I gave my 2.5yr old our Nikon CoolPix L18 for the weekend to see what would happen. In the end the camera is probably toast but the pics he took made it worth it.

Things I learned:

• The kid is a natural at taking a picture of himself
• He has a knack for this. He started setting up his own shots by placing toys in certain spots to get a picture
• Retractable lens is apparently crack. on-off-on-off-of-off
• He picks up on technology WAY faster than I expected
• I have no idea what some of these symbols are that now appear in the preview screen
• I think he knows french, or so the menu system now says.

The year was 1993. It rained and was cold but I had one thing on my mind… finishing The Great Race. I was starting my senior year of high school, ran Cross Country and had a considerable amount of speed. I was 160 lbs and at 6ft would get blown away by a strong enough breeze. I was also rockin some serious 90′s hair. Little did I know this would be the last time I would run it. I don’t remember much about this day besides keeping pace with some Marines and seeing 6 guys running as a 6-pack of Penn Pilsner. In a month I would run my last CC race and then that would be it. My knee would give out as I crossed the finish line in a race for sectionals and I never jogged a mile again.

I went into rehab for my knee and was still offered a partial scholarship to a local college to run but I really had my heart set on Pitt and well, we know how that story ends.

Today was the latest edition of the Great Race and I’m starting to wonder if I should give it another shot. Yeah its easy to say “why not, just get out there” but with the chaos that is our family schedule free time is not something that comes easy. I used to like running. It was just me and the road… or track… or muddy woods. In the winter (in Erie) I would run outside in shorts and a stocking hat with 2-3 ft of snow around me. I also only ever dated runners.

The time since the Great Race didn’t hit me until I looked that pictured above and realized that my little niece on my brother’s shoulder’s turned 21 this past summer.

I’d like to give it a shot. Of course I can find more reasons why I shouldn’t than I should but I think it would be fun. I need to find the right shoes, someone to train with, the right clothes, the right energy bar, the right gps to mp3 to twitter to facebook update stat thinger.

The right… christ this is more work than actually running.

Last Friday night I resumed my traditional perch among the podcampers by providing the beverages for the Podcamp Pittsburgh Meet-n-Greet icebreaker. Not to break from tradition I also brought with me 9 cases of the finest Erie Brewing Company offerings with Presque Isle Pils, Derailed Black Cherry Ale, Misery Bay IPA, Railbender, Heritage Alt and Fallenbock.

Estimated crowd of 200 at Alpha Lab had all of the beer kicked in 75 minutes. Yeah, didn’t expect THAT to happen but thankfully there was wine that I was also pouring for people. A delicious point was proven though, women love good craft beer.

I had the assistance of Scottsweep and Mrs. Crappy since sickpuppy was under the weather.

Again it was another successful night for Should I Drink That and there are plenty of pictures to show for it.

Unfortunately for me this would be the most Podcamp action I would see. Due to work schedules I was on kid detail for most of Saturday but did make it down for 1 session and then to the afterparty.

In a soon to be new tradition for Podcamp I joined uncapd from Bocktown and tailgated in the Station Square parking lot before the afterparty. Yes, we tailgated an afterparty. She brought 4 growlers with her which shouldn’t be a shock since people in craft beer always come prepared. We feasted on Southern Tier Pumking, Flying Dog In-Heat Wheat, Woodchuck Fall and Atwater Vanilla Java Porter. All equally as good but the Pumking is my new favorite pumpkin beer.

The entertainment was plentiful as the REO Speedwagon crowd, groups for a wedding reception and a shit-ton of strung out college aged kids for a rave wandered around in brought clothes and white t-shirts. Unfortunately these 2 didnt make it to the party.

After party was at Bar Louie in Station Square and once again they lived up to their level of sub par service. Finally getting served we made our way to the back and did the podcamp traditional 649.

The shot this year – Cruzan Black Cherry rum, SoCo and Absolut Raz.  basically it was cough syrup.

The service was bad but the friends and view were amazing. Overall it was a good night. Sucked that I had a very minimal role since the 1st Podcamp happened but that’s a role a lot of us dad’s have to take these days.

Teaspoon’s little bro can brighten any day.

Thanks to all whom fight to give us the freedom to enjoy moments like this!

Labor Day was a gloomy miserable day outside so after a quality nap we decided it was an indoors day. Lushie, always trying to get me to watch some girlie bullshit,  told me I need to watch this new show called The Picker Sisters. I’m thinking “Great, its on Lifetime so someone is probably being murdered, raped or its a story of something zzzzzzz.”

Best way to explain this is to take the show American Pickers and make the hosts 2 hot chicks. That pretty much sums it up. I realized after the 4th hour that I really didn’t understand what I was supposed to be watching besides 2 girls in Daisy Duke shorts sift through junk and then make their man-bitch build something out of it back in LA.  They are hot though so I kept watching and it was better than another marathon of kids programming.

Then it happened… Dance Moms.

I’m a sucker anything involving Pittsburgh for 2 reasons. 1) I love this city 2) I’m always looking for someone I know.  In this case I found myself being hypnotized by this drill sergeant of a dance teach screaming at parents and kids. Honestly I was on the edge of my seat waiting for a heart attack or head explosion.

Quick overview – Abby has been running her dance studio for 25 years and wins a shit ton of awards because she pushes for the best. The 5 moms of some students stay and watch… and bitch… a lot. 2 of the moms are being portrayed as loving to hit the bottle, one thinks she’s Michelle Obama, another is the mom of the best dancer and busts her ass to help out and then there is the crazy ass who owns her own studio in Ohio but drives her daughter to Pittsburgh so Abby can make her better but this nut case tries telling Abby what to do.

The show is a complete trainwreck and its glorious. Here’s the deal, you want the best you pay for the best. Abby is obviously it. You know going in that this lady is going to push your kids hard so shut up. If you don’t like it there are other studios you can go to. Coddle your kids elsewhere while she grooms champions.

You cant stop watching though because the moms are insane; the instructor is insane and well everyone is insane.  If I ever had a girl would I send her there? Probably not because the demand on parents is way more than we could deal with and Lushie would probably beat every mom up and headbutt Abby.

Anyways, check out the shows. They’re worth it. Don’t let Lifetime fool ya, if it was on Spike the dudes would be all over this.

Picker Sisters – Tuesdays at 10p

Dance Moms – Wednesdays at 10p

1999 was the last time I recall drinking Franzia. It was a common to come home from work and find Griff sitting on my porch with a box of Franzia for us to drink while coding or playing Playstation.

To add to our classy style the box Chillable Red was pronounced “shay-aw-blay” and you drink it out of whatever is handy.

I don’t know what made me want to buy it after 12 years. I’m a snob about beer but when it comes to wine I really could care less. I know that Franzia is considered ghetto because its in a box but hey, craft beer comes in cans now too.

Yesterday I spent 4.5 hours doing yard work. I’m incredibly anal sometimes on how my yard looks and I can thank my father for that.

Wondering why it seemed like a sauna I came in to see it was in the 90′s. I chill in the AC (no pun intended) to cool off and get cleaned up before heading to the mall.

The kids were in the house all day and they, plus the wife, were going stir crazy. On our way to Robinson is when we saw triple digits… 102F. As luck would have it the mall parking lot had fresh blacktop also.

After an exhausting day the unthinkable happened. Everyone went to bed at 9pm on a Saturday and for the first time in 3 years I slept 8 hours.

As I sit here in bed typing this (wooooo buddy!) I realized something, even though my 25 yr old self would kick my ass for going to bed at 9p especially on saturday during a holiday weekend, my 35 yr old self is telling him to stfu

I’ve been listening to a lot of SiriusXM over the last week at my desk and I have to tell you, I don’t like the realization of how long its been since certain memories.

Take for instance yesterday, Got You (where I want you) from The Flys came on and I haven’t heard that in awhile. It reminds me of the first summer I spent in Pittsburgh and that was 1999. To me that’s like last year but reality is it’s 12 years ago. TWELVE YEARS! That’s the age of a middle school student. Christ almighty… I was a spiffy freshfaced 23 yr old just off the bus from Erie who would come home from working at a tech company to find Griff standing at my apt. door with a box of wine and waiting to hit the Playstation.

Recently I’ve gotten back in touch with former co-workers when I was in Erie and even old friends I haven’t seen in 15-17 years. Some of them have kids going to high school. That was an even bigger kick in the time warp nuts.

Where has time gone? I’m a different person than when I lived in Erie, than when I moved here and hell, I’m different than I was 5 years ago when My dad passed away. I think that was the significant event that changed how I perceive time and now I want to spend as much time as I can with my kids before they grow up too fast. My lifestyle has changed dramatically because I want to savor being a dad. Besides the lack of sleep and the crying (by the kids, not me… ok maybe me sometimes) I absolutely love this role in life and where I am.

Time, I’ve got you where I want you.