Camera Men

hissen_camera_smBy: Billy BeerSlugger

I’m an avid watcher of shows on the Discovery Channel, The History Channel, National Geographic and other knowledge dropping shows.  I’m a fan of Animal Planet and other shows that put you in the middle of a Jungle or Desert and show you what happens when confronted with the dangerous creatures that inhabit them, as evidenced by a previous post on Austin Stevens Snake Master.

What a friend and I were discussing the other day while enjoying a few adult beverages was how little credit the camera man gets for their efforts.

You have these guys like Austin Stevens and Steve Irwin (previously), trotting across the globe and journeying into jungles etc. looking for the most dangerous animals on the planet and getting close enough to them to piss these animals off.  All the while you see the main guy on the TV but you never really take into account what’s going on with the camera man.  His life is in obvious danger too and he’s got a 50 plus pound Camera to account for as well.  From a Cobra spitting venom to a charging Komodo Dragon to wading in a river filled with Piranha to just plain being in an Ocean infested with sharks, these guys are a classic case of All Guts and No Glory.

I’m wondering if there’s some sort of award that goes out to these guys for risking their lives.  If there is, I’ve never heard of it and if it was recognized by a major awards show like The Oscars or The Emmy’s, it probably is given out earlier and not televised.

So here’s to you Crazy Camera Men, this Miller High Life can was schwilled in your honor.

Ben Franklin Bridge Run

50centercity
View From The Bridge

By: Billy BeerSlugger

The Ben Franklin Bridge is 9,573 feet long which equates to about a 3.5 mile run up and back from Philly to Camden. If you’re like me right now and are scrambling to lose weight because summer already started, this is a great workout.

The Bridge walkway is open from 6am to 9pm so you can even get a run in after you get home from work.

There is an even mix of hills and declines with the middle span of the bridge being more or less of a straight away.  Along your journey you may encounter other people walking, running or cycling.  Please watch out for them if you are wearing headphones and are blasting music on high, you may just run into a biker.

The Ben Franklin Bridge was originally named the Delaware River Bridge but was later renamed for statesman and Philadelphian, Benjamin Franklin.

When the bridge opened in 1926 it was the deemed the World’s largest Suspension Bridge Span (533 meters) until that distinction was taken away in 1929 with the opening of the Ambassador Bridge.

Originally one lane of the bridge, in each direction, was fitted with Streetcar/Trolley tracks and the anchorages were outfitted as boarding stations.  These stations were never used though since the company owning the Camden Streetcar system ceased operations in 1932.  The streetcar rails were taken up and replaced with another lane for vehicles going in each direction.  Eventually rapid transit tracks were laid on outbound sides of the bridge completed in 1939.  The Bridge Line Subway connected Broadway and City Hall in Camden with 8th and Market in Philadelphia.  The Bridge Line expanded to 16th and Locust in 1952 and began carrying PATCO trains in 1969.

While using pedestrian means to cross the bridge is free, it now costs $4.00 to use the bridge coming from the Camden side into Philadelphia by car.

Drunk Food: Volcano Hamburger Helper

By: Billy BeerSlugger

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It would be better if this picture wasn't fuzzy

I consider myself a sort of Renaissance man.  Not only can I make a crappy website, do drywall, install ceiling fans and other Man stuff, I can also Cook and do my own Laundry.

On a previous post I promised to give you the recipe for my Macaroni & Cheese, Ground Beef concoction.

So here’s what you need:

1) A box of Macaroni & Cheese. I use the White Cheddar kind.  You will also need the things necessary to make Macaroni & Cheese like Milk and Butter.

2) A pound of Ground Beef.

3) An Onion.

4) A Green Pepper.

5) An 8oz bag of Shredded Cheese of your choosing. I use a 3 cheese medley usually used in tacos.

6) Half a jar of Spaghetti Sauce (12oz).  Your choice but I like to use a Sweeter Sauce.

7) Hot Sauce.

This couldn’t be easier to make:

1) Slice up the Green Pepper and Onion

2) Combine Sliced Green Pepper and Onion with Ground Beef in a frying pan.

3) Cook the Macaroni & Cheese following the directions on the box.

4) Pre-Heat the oven to 400 degrees.

5) Combine Macaroni & Cheese with the Browned Ground Beef, Onions and Green Pepper in a baking dish.

6) Mix in the spaghetti sauce and hot sauce to taste.

7) Add the shredded cheese as desired. I use the whole bag because I eat to deal with my emotions.

8) Bake this bad bear for about 10 minutes.

It feeds 4 people for around $10.  Or if you’re me, you eat half of it and then cry the rest of the night.  It’s not exactly a food for people who are counting calories, but if you’re wasted it may be one of the best meals you’ve ever had.

Of course I do not recommend cooking while drunk.  You may fall asleep like F.X. Galvin and almost burn the house down.

The Fathers of American Beer

By: Billy BeerSlugger

While two or so of our writers are putting the finishing touches on the final entries in to the Greatest Athlete of All Time Debate, I decided the next series I would focus on would be the Brewers that put American beer on the map.  Men like Adolphus Busch, Frederick Pabst, Frederick Miller, Adolph Coors, D.G. Yuengling and Joseph Schlitz to name a few.

Every week or so I’ll be profiling one of the Great Brewers from America’s infancy.

Next week also look forward to the new BeerSlugger Babe of the Month.

Indian Pale Ale (IPA)

india-pale-aleBy: Luan Zuccarello

This scene is all too familiar – A group of Yuppies, Douchbags, rich kids, Villanova graduates, or group of upscale dorks that care more about their portfolio then beer – walk into a bar an order the local IPA. Now these guys are 1. Not big drinkers and 2. Trying to impress girls with a different kind of drink – kind of like “Hey I’m cool I drink expensive beer that you never heard of”. I will guarantee 3 things will happen.

  1. They will not like the beer
  2. They will get so sloppy drunk, annoying and they will pick a fight ultimately referencing their lawyer and a lawsuit.
  3. They have no idea what an IPA is

IPA or India Pale Ale is an ale that is light amber to copper in color, with hoppy, bitter and sometimes malty flavor. IPA’s generally have a higher alcohol by volume content and are popular as microbrews. In the 1700s, there was a lot of trade going on between Great Britian and India. The problem with shipping beer is that it needs to be cold or it will go flat and sour. The long journey from Great Britain to India would result in all of the beer being ruined before it got to its intended destination. Since refrigeration was not yet invented, brewers had only one alternative – hops. High amounts of hops lead to greater fermentation which increases the alcohol content of a beer. Higher alcohol fights off bacteria and leads to a longer shelf life. Thus the name India Pale Ale stuck due to its voyage from Great Britain to India.

Personally I find IPA’s delicious and consider them my favorite style of beer. I understand not everyone likes the intense hop flavor but they should be tried. Brewers get very creative with this style and it leads to some interesting and different flavors. Write in and tell us what your favorite IPA is.

Lightning

lightning

By: Luan Zuccarello

I was down the shore last weekend and watched one hell of a storm over the ocean. The lightning strikes on the water looked like something out of a Michael Bay movie. OK, maybe I had a couple beers in me and I am over exaggerating a little – but it was still cool. So I started to try and think back to 7th grade science class and to what causes lightning. However I was too interested in little Molly’s short skirt then protons and electrons (although I did get an A on “her”anus). Thank God for Google.

Lightning is a discharge of atmospheric electricity which is triggered when differing charges meet in the cloud. Typically, the bottom of a cloud is negatively charged, and it sends out what is known as a “leader” which seeks a positive charge at the top of the cloud. When these two charges meet a bolt of lightning is born. After the lightning travels to the ground or another cloud, it may strike again several times within a fraction of a second. These re-strikes are so fast that people cannot register them with the naked eye; instead, they appear as a single strike. The air near a lightning strike is hotter than the surface of the sun! The rapid heating and cooling of the air near the lightning channel causes a shock wave that results in thunder.

Here is a fun fact if you catch yourself in a storm with a baby girl. Watch for a strike of lightning then count the seconds until you hear a clap of thunder. Take this number and divide by 5. This will leave you with the number of miles the storm is away. This can provide very useful if you find yourself with a Butterface (everything looks good but her face). Now you can calculate how much longer you have to stare at her before the lights go out. Much easier and better for the girl’s self esteem then the paper bag.


Lesbians, What’s Up?

Watercolour painting by Achille Devéria
Watercolour painting by Achille Devéria

By: Billy BeerSlugger

So Luan Zuccarello and I were at McGillan’s last night to take advantage of .25 cent wings and $5 pitchers and to watch Antonio Bastardo, in his major league debut, mow down the San Diego Padres.  McGillan’s is one of my favorite bars and the oldest bar in the city of Philadelphia (a post dedicated to McGillans in the future).

So we’re sitting there watching the game after eating our wings, just Muggin’ and Sluggin’ (pouring beer from a pitcher into a mug and downing that beer as fast as possible), when a girl comes up and introduces herself.  She’s about 5’5”, a Philly Police Officer and after a brief introduction mentions she’s “Gay as Shit”.  You might have gathered that because she looked like she could be playing catcher on a girls softball team.

The real reason she came over was to try and get us to go talk to her friend a couple of tables away that she was sitting at.  Now we discussed this and it was somewhat amateur and akin to when Rudy Ruettiger (of movie Rudy fame) had to go out and try to pick up girls for his friend D-Bob, but amusing nonetheless.

There really wasn’t any way we were going to get up and chat with the girl two tables away but I did have a great conversation with the Lesbian.

I asked:

“If you were tied down in a bed and blindfolded, I was completely clean shaven and I went down and ate you out,

1) Would you know it was a man?

2) Would I get you off, considering my skills in the art of Cunnilingus?”

“Great Question”, she replied.  Really didn’t offer up an answer but from the pause she took to think about it I’m pretty sure she went home and had a dream about it last night.

This is something I have just added to my life goals, right under being picked from the studio audience  to compete on the Price is Right, bang a semi-attractive lesbian.

She did come back with the question, “If you were blindfolded and bound and a guy was blowing you would you know it?”  I told her a blow job is a blow job and as long as the guy didn’t act like a faggot about it, it was all the same (please read the sarcasm here).  The lesbian is now laughing her ass off.

This is my standard question to any lesbian I meet in a bar and is a great ice-breaker.  Please share any other lesbian stories or pickup lines you may have.

Megan Fox

By: Billy BeerSlugger

Ok, it’s 5:30am and I’ve been up all night trying to get this fucking application to deploy properly on the a client’s sever but who gives a fuck about that.  I realize I didn’t post anything yesterday and not that I’m running out of ideas or anything I just don’t have the wherewithal to write something as edgy and cool as a Fall Out Boy Anthem right now.

So I’m gonna go with old faithful, hot chicks.  Now the subject of this post has been dubbed the hottest woman on the planet by some, she stars in the upcoming Transformers 2 and I think signed on to do be the new Wonder Woman, I’m talking about Megan Fox.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge Megan Fox fan, but she’s not the hottest girl in the world by far, yea I said it.  The woman needs to eat a cheese steak, American Wiz Wit’ if you know what I mean.  If I got her in bed (non-existent chance) I would be worried I would break her. She’s 5’6” and has got to be all of 100lbs.

I’m all for girls being skinny but not starving themselves.  Hot girls are enough to put up with as it is but they’re extremely bitchy when they’re starving themselves.  You see a guy walking around with a hot girl and you’re like, “Damn I wish that was me”, but you don’t know how much bullshit this guy is going through to keep this girl happy and ward off would be suitors at the same time.  All to get laid and walk around town holding hands with the homecoming queen.

Is it worth it? Yea sometimes it’s worth it, but most of the time you’re asking if you can have your testicles back or rocking a dinner/drinks get together with all the other hot girls and their boyfriends.  She’s going, “Go talk to Jim over there he likes Baseball too”.  You casually stroll over, “So Jim how about that local sports team eh’.”.

Anyway, I’m delirious right now.  Here’s you Tuesday moment of Zen.