My blog n'at

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What an incredible evening! Tuesday night a lot of the work I’ve done on SIDT paid off when I was invited backstage to hang out with Zane Lamprey (and a few beverages) before his Drinking Made Easy show started at Mr. Smalls Theater. I was contacted a couple weeks ago by Zane’s PR people asking if we would be interested in talking with Zane. They knew of the podcast and thought we would be a great fit. Were we ever!

As we walked up to the door we were greeted at the door by Steve McKenna who was already downing some beers. Incredibly nice guy but that may have had to do with the fact I was carrying a box of  presents.

• 1 growler of East End Monkey Girl
• 1 growler of Erie Derailed
• 1/2 gallon of Rebel Yell whiskey
• 750ml Brookside whiskey
• bag of misc. swag from Bocktown whom also provided the growlers
• 1 Gray Kangaroo personal alcohol filter
• 6 pack of SIDT hangover preventer – a.k.a. Pedialyte

The “green room” I think it’s the old sacristy which is where we chatted up Marc Ryan. That’s right, Mr. Smalls is in an old church. Pittsburgh likes to convert old churches into venues for mass consumption of alcohol.

The interview with Zane turned out amazing and will be posted shortly. He was very welcoming and we really appreciate that he took time to hang with us 10 minutes before he went on stage. The man was in the zone. If his name sounds familiar, Zane was the host of a show called Three Sheets which aired on MOJO, FLN and, as he announced at the concert, Travel Channel will be airing all episodes. Zane said he’d be in touch again to give us an update on everything.

This was my first time seeing a comedy act on stage since I won my Comedy Central private party with Lewis Black so I forgot what it was like until that front row was blasted by the acts. LOVED it! People, when are you going to learn not to heckle the talent. You’re gonna get burned.

The tour is called Drinking Made Easy which is also the name of his show on HDNet this fall. In fact as he tours around America he is recording episodes. Unfortunately Pittsburgh got snubbed but we do hope he returns soon.

Zane gives you an education on the basics of alcohol which you may not know. From a craft beer angle I have to say he covered us rather well and showed what goes into beer and how its made. Afterwards we hung out with some SIDT fans which I do have video of and will get on You Tube shortly. It goes along with the EP we recorded for so you’ll need to sit tight for this week.

I’m not a fan of books and in fact I hate reading but after picking up Zane’s book “Three Sheets: Drinking Made Easy! 6 Continents, 15 Countries, 190 Drinks, And 1 Mean Hangover!“ I finally found something I can get into and not get bored outta my skull. Once I finish the book I’ll write a review.

Its been almost a week and I’m still geeking over it. It’s good to be the SIDT.

Hey everyone, we need your help with something that was just brought to our attention and will take you less than 2 minutes but we need you to do it ASAP since the deadline is May 31st!. Pittsburgh Magazine is holding its Best of the Burgh competition again this year and there is not ONE mention of craft beer or podcasts. We want to change that and here’s how you can win something very badass in the process.

1. Go to : http://www.pittsburghmagazine.com/Pittsburgh-Magazine/April-2010/Best-of-Pittsburgh-Survey/
2. Scroll to the bottom and in “Did we miss something? – Best of Other” type in “Should I Drink That – Best Craft Beer Podcast”
3. Submit

Now you can fill out the rest if you’re so inclined but the main thing is to get us in the OTHER category.

Pittsburgh is booming with great craft beer destinations and no where in “Food and Drink” do you find a category for them. Pittsburgh needs to be aware of the incredible craft beer culture we have in this city and by submitting our names you’re helping to get the word out!

Now, since we like to reward you for your help here’s what you get, let us know you voted (honor system here folks, we trust you) and you will receive 5 entries for… 2 tickets to see Zane Lamprey’s Drinking Made Easy Comedy Tour at Mr. Small’s Theater on June 8th at 8pm! You may know Zane from his hit TV show Three Sheets so now you can hang with SIDT & Zane in the same night! Its a drinking doubleheader!

Get out and vote!

DEADLINE IS MAY 31ST!!!

4 years ago today sickpuppy and I launched SIDT. We figured that it would last 10 shows and maybe a couple hundred downloads from friends. This evening we’re releasing EP63 and are pushing 700,000 downloads.

I thought about doing a “state of SIDT” address for today but realized that required a lot of work and I have beer to drink. I know we say this every year but we’ve kept our promise, wait till you see what we’re gonna do next. 2010-11 has already shaped up to be unreal and we will be doing more with our social media sites getting you guys even more involved.  iphone/droid apps are in the works, more with the DD hotline and goodies I havent even told sickpup about.

I will say this, our 5th anniversary is going to be a freaking bash

Thanks everyone for the support and don’t forget to call…

cheers!

The Beer Wench and I sat down for a chit chat over email about my beer blogging, Should I Drink That, my own personal beer history from the first one I ever drank at age 16 (and still have the bottle) to why I does what I does now n’at. You’ll find out more about me that I haven’t said in interviews before and you can also check out the other fantastic beer bloggers she’s talked to.

Read the interview here!

Raise a pint and leave a comment here or there or everywhere

cheers!

Contrary to what you may have read before on here I try to keep SIDT and everything else separate unless it’s really badass news but this is something I really feel requires serious attention.

That guy up there, that’s craft beer writer, acclaimed author and winner of the 2008 Michael Jackson (not the singer)  Beer Journalism Award, Lew Bryson. If there is anything going on in craft beer you need to know about, he’s the guy to talk to. I’ve had the please of meeting him 3 times previously and last Saturday while he was in Pittsburgh we met up to talk about the Philly Beer Raids from (now) 3 weeks ago.

What happened in Philly goes beyond the annoyance of not being able to buy beer where ever you want in PA. This runs much deeper to the root of the problem, the PLCB. To get you caught up to speed, 3 establishments were raided because they served “unregistered” beer. In PA you have to pay $75 to register your beer with the PLCB. The problem? the records or “the list” is grossly outdated and contains many errors and typos. Beers that are registered were being confiscated because the list was wrong. In fact the state has said you cant go by what’s on the list anymore but still use it when raiding.  oh yeah, this all happened because of ONE citizens complaint.

I ask that you download or listen to the show from the website and find out what is really going on with the state of craft beer in Pennsylvania. Along with the raids Lew also addresses the Johnstown Flood tax (did you know you’re still paying that 70+ years later?) and then we end with Hart from Sharp Edge breaking down how this could impact businesses all over PA. Then contact your legislator and let them know your thoughts on PA’s archaic laws. We need to rewrite the code!

You heard it yesterday but I’m saying it again, we’re giving away some really cool prizes.

• 1 Autographed copy of March 2010 issue of Pittsburgh Magazine by Should I Drink That
• 1 year subscription to Pittsburgh magazine
• 1 $50 gift card to Piper’s Pub on the South Side – (Support your local businesses and craft beer at the same time!)

One entry per person BUT if you forward us the email you sent to your legislator (Copy/paste it in the contact form) that will count as 5 entries. To enter go to the SIDT contest page.  April 15th at 11:59:59 pm EST

cheers!

I love giving things away. LOVE LOVE LOVE! So here’s your chance to win some kickass things!

1) Exclusively for yinz readers comes 2 FREE Carnegie museum passes courtesy of the leader in used cars in Pittsburgh specializing in drivers with a budget of less than $10,000, Pittsburgh Budget Cars. How do you win this? Easy, shoot me a message in the contact form and tell me what you love most about the Carnegie Museum! The winner will be picked at random by super random number picker of power.  Deadline for this is March 31st at 11:59:59 pm EST

2) Over on Should I Drink That we’re giving away

• 1 Autographed copy of March 2010 issue of Pittsburgh Magazine by Should I Drink That
• 1 year subscription to Pittsburgh magazine
• 1 $50 gift card to Piper’s Pub on the South Side – (Support your local businesses and craft beer at the same time!)

One entry per person BUT if you forward us the email you sent to your legislator (Copy/paste it in the contact form) that will count as 5 entries. To enter go to the SIDT contest page.  April 15th at 11:59:59 pm EST

There you go! 4 killer gifts you can win FOR FREE!

Spoony loves ya baby!

Since the Pittsburgh Magazine article came out I’ve had quite a few notifications of new followers. Most times I’ll follow back because I’m always up for a good conversation and try to keep up with everything going on through the day but lets be honest, you can’t follow all the time (just like it can’t rain all the time).

This morning I tweeted that I was psyched to see Anthony Bourdain was coming to Pittsburgh to talk. This is a must for me so I told Lushie we need to make plans for it. Shortly afterwards I had a reply from TwinmamaTeb saying “@douglasderda clearly you missed all my tweets about the presale and gettting 8th row seats. heh.”. That’s when I thought, how many conversations am I missing?  Granted most tweets are people spewing random nonsense (I’m guilty myself) but what else have I missed out on? I decided it was time to checked my stats.

As of right now I have 1,250 followers, I’m following 987 back and I’m on 112 lists. Those 112 lists can be summed up in the following categories: beer, hockey, Pittsburgh.  If I were to die right now that is how I could be summed up in 3 words. I love craft beer, I love hockey and I love Pittsburgh.

The most popular question I get from people obsessed with Facebook is “Why do you tweet?”  I gave it some though and here’s the deal on how/why I use Twitter. I’m connected to every user. Because of tags such as “craftbeer” I have been introduced to a community of people that I may have never had the chance to meet besides the degrees of separation on FB. I use Twitter because it’s about the conversation. Over the past day I finally started watching the #craftbeer tag on Twitter with TweetDeck and have met some incredible bloggers, fans from all over the world and a few brewers.  I’m able to buy and sell hockey tickets and chat with other Pens fans during games. I have been invited to events I may not have known about before and helped plan a few of my own. All in under 140 characters. I can ask questions and people, while sometimes smartasses, answer. I can get traffic updates from not just the networks but from people out on the roads.

From the 1250 I’m not following 263. Odds have it you’re selling me a service I don’t want, you’re a spammer or I really have no clue what your deal is. Now there is the margin of error since Twitter is notorious from un-following people without warning and if you’re one of those let me know.

So now I’m reaching out to you. If you’re in the rest of the 987 and read this blog (which hopefully you do because you follow me on twitter and obviously wanna get to know me ) leave me a comment. I can say that I know MAYBE 2/5 of you personally from beer events or social media but if we’ve never met before I want you to say hi. If you wanna keep it personal then shoot me a message on my contact form.  Spoon wants know who you are! If you’re in the Pittsburgh area and want to meet others check out Pittsburgh tweetup!

I should probably tweet this…

You’re seeing that correctly. In what could be labeled as our worst kept secret ever, we grace the pages of the March 2010 issue of Pittsburgh Magazine. I was flattered when I first learned that Jonathan Wander wanted to talk to me about the show and since it was around Podcamp Pittsburgh time I figured he was a curious fan. That’s when I found out about his intentions to write the article which left me stunned. We’re talkin USA scores with 26 seconds left in regulation of gold medal game Canadian stunned. I’ve done many interviews with beer trade magazines but never with anyone outside that realm and I honestly didn’t know how their readers would take to us.  We do carry an explicit tag but also we’re genuine on there and not some corporate bullshit. People tell me they dig that so that has to put some odds in our favor. This past January Jonathan and I talked over the phone for a solid 2 hours about the show, my life, growing up in Erie and followed it with a photo shoot at Bocktown on a Sunday afternoon. The rest was up to his creative hands.

The article is incredible and I admit, when I first saw it in print at Giant Eagle, I blushed.  Oh hell I was glowing. Only a few select people know how much work I really put into this show behind the scenes and to see it on a stage like Pittsburgh Magazine just blows my mind, even more than when we appeared in national publication DRAFT. In a way it seems like the show was validated. When you hit local there’s something even more meaningful about it. Now if someone back in my hometown of Erie calls, oh lord I’ll never shut up.

The magazine will be seen by over 250,000 readers in 10 counties (Erie included). If you can’t find it at your local Giant Eagle, Borders or Barnes & Noble you can read the online version here

Thankfully with the show I have been able to develop skills that I never thought twice about and it turned into getting my butt employed. Should I Drink That has treated me well and with the plans that I have in mind for this year, should make the experience even more amazing.

Creatively I know where I want this to go and how the whole process should flow. Does it happen that way? Hell no. In fact getting an episode of SIDT together is a huge pain in the ass but one I like to have. When we started it was “lets go to the store and see what we can buy” and now there is a dry erase board that I plan out the next few shows on. Multicolored markers too cause I’m spiffy like that. I think once Studio B is purchased and wired I’ll have a better understanding of what it is I want but until then we’re going with what’s worked.

I want to thank everyone who has supported the show.  When I was starting college I wanted to get into radio and that dream was quickly shot down by my fam. Then again they also said I would never make a living in computers and look how that turned out  Without you, my kickass friends, I would never have moved forward with long lost dream and this thing would have been over with years ago.

Thanks everyone!

cheers!

15 years ago was my first formal dance in college and what would turn out to be the last at this venue. It was on this night that UPT will be slapped with a lifetime banishment from any future events and can only be describes as “Semi-formal 1995 – We Destroyed the Holiday inn Oil City”.

I can’t recall much from this night besides a few details that I get to relive in photographs so if any of you have pics from that night let me know. There wasn’t much to Oil City and quite frankly the Holiday Inn was about as nice as we were going to get.

I went with my friend Stacy from Erie and had a corner room double bed. Why? Her boyfriend was bringing my girlfriend Michele down from Eire. Make sense? Yeah I dont really remember why either. The dance and dinner wasn’t bad but no one cared since the 4 of us spent most of the night in the room playing drinking games along with Drew whom joined us with a bottle of Citron.

At some point the state police showed up and stood guard outside our room with guns drawn. They were searching rooms (apparently someone tried jumping into the pool from the 3rd floor) and when they arrived at ours everyone hid in the bathroom except for me and Chele (we acted like we were sleeping). Being the clean freak that Drew was our place was spotless so that helped in our alibi.

I did post these on Facebook along with a few others and stories are starting to trickle in. Like the reason why our room was suspect would be due to the 2 cases of empties the guys next door planted.

Now I was hoping to share all of these great pics with you but a few parties involved are now professionals so out of respect I wont put them on here but I will share this one.  I give you me and Stacy on that fateful night.

In case you’re scratching your head, grain alcohol was still available then and was indeed involved that night. We may have been a prime example why it was banned in PA. Probably a good thing, kids today wouldn’t be able to handle it.

and I’d do the same thing.

I don’t see what the big deal is and people, give them a freaking break. They busted their asses for years preparing for this one event and they came out with the gold. From all reports I’ve read this was after the fans have left and the media remained. There is absolutely no harm in celebration 30 minutes after the fact and just because it was smokes and beer over probably champagne and some other boring ass dried up tradition some people are having a fit. You’re not disrespecting. You’re celebrating the moment and when the fans are gone who cares, you’re not breaking any laws (well maybe the girl was is 18 was) and not being lewd or crude. You’re having a beer and smoking a cigar. If you’re worried about your kids you should stop watching professional sports and get a grip. Is your issue the fact they drank and smoke or that they came back out on the ice… when everyone was gone?

Granted I would never drink that Molson crap but its the beer of Canada so whatever, fire it up girls you deserve it!

My 34th birthday was Sunday and overall my weekend was pretty uneventful which is kinda how I wanted it. Most people have the 25 freak out, me its 34. I’ve always dreaded that age because when I was growing up I remember thinking how old my brother seemed at that age and now I’m there. What do you expect, I was 16 at the time so in perspective it’s similar to my nephew/godson Ben right now.

Lushie calls me last Wednesday to say that the ceiling in the kitchen is falling in. I get home and see our beloved vagina ceiling which I’ve now named Betty White. We both agree that her and Teaspoon should go to her mother’s for the weekend since the landlord said he would be over to fix it. Friday morning arrives, they leave and I wait… and wait…. and wait… and well you get the picture. I burned 2 vacation days to wait for repairs that never came. I love this guy.

Once late afternoon rolled around and I realized I was stood up there was only one thing I could do; buy a case of beverage. If you’re unfamiliar with my birthday treat I present to you the Weyerbacher Big Beers case ($54/case)

You may be scratching your head as to why I selected this one. When I first started ever performing beer reviews this was my first case which was purchased with Griff. The smallest AVB is 9% in this variety case.  In it you will find Old Heathen(10%), Double Simcoe IPA (9%), Blithering Idiot(11%) and Merry Monks Ale (9.3%).

Dinner Friday night night was; bah who am I kidding it was a Friday during Lent… I didn’t eat. I got word that our big surprise for SIDT was happening that day and not a week later so after catching my breath and checking a few things made the decision that I wasn’t going to spend my first bachelor birthday weekend doing any work. I’ll have time for that this week.

Saturday was spent with 2 things on my mind, NHL10 and BBQ. One of those two took me down for the count and it wasn’t the video game. I went to Smokey Bones for a rack of ribs and would soon find out this would be an epic fail.  You’re gonna have to wait to find out why though. Its worthy of its own post.

Saturday night was me, curling and chatting online until almost sunrise. Damn you west coasters but thanks for the birthday wishes and great time

Sunday, the birthday, was pretty mellow and I chilled at home, visited some fam and then the house was packed once again with Teaspoon craziness.

So there’s my recap. I have plenty of posts coming up when I’m dodging falling ceiling.