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BeerSlugger.com Babe of the Month

By: Billy BeerSlugger

So last week while outfitting the new domicile I had the greatest idea since the inception of this website.  I was in the bathroom whilst hanging a clock, I slipped, hit my head on the sink and then it came to me.  The BeerSlugger.com Babe of the Month.

Obviously nothing nude since most of our readers peruse the BeerSlugger.com from work, but we’ll try to get as scantily clad as possible without getting the dreaded Not Safe For Work (NS4W) tag applied to it.

There’s a lot of ideas floating around right now in terms where to go forward with this but we went full speed ahead and had a quasi professional photoshoot in the new diggs.

Look for the Innagural BeerSlugger Babe of the Month Post Thurday, May 7th.

Thanks for all your support,

W.J. BeerSlugger

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The British Invasion

By: Billy Beerslugger

Listen, I’m really tired of all you British people on American TV shows.  What is it about being British that makes you so fucking genius that you can judge a competition reality TV show?  And what is it about Americans that they fall for this bullshit?  It’s so formulaic, put an asshole British person on a panel with 2 or 3 other judges, have them demean the talent and you’ve got yourself a hit!

Here’s what I see, Simon Cowell on American Idol, Piers Morgan on America’s Got Talent and Celebrity Apprentice, Len Goodman on Dancing with the Stars, Nigel Lythgoe on So You Think You Can Dance, Gordon Ramsay on Hell’s Kitchen, whatever that husky bitch’s name is on Supernanny.  Sharon Osbourne is in there somewhere. There’s probably tons more that I am missing but do you see a pattern here?  Are you picking up what I’m putting down?

Why is a smug ass Brit more qualified to do this shit?  We couldn’t have gotten American assholes for these shows?  I’ll be the first to tell you a British accent makes a chick a little hotter but I don’t see how it makes them smarter or capable of making decisions for an asinine TV show that shouldn’t be on in the first place.

I’ve got an idea for a TV show I’m pitching to my friends in Hollywood, you take a British Crack addict, bring him over here to America and have him run a Post Office in the middle of a Major Metropolitan City.  You tell all the Postal workers that they have to listen to the crack addict or lose their pension and you tell the druggie Brit that he has to yell at the people all day for no good reason, even if they are doing their job. The more he yells, the more crack he gets.  A Postal Worker is voted out of the Office every week until there is only one left or one of the Postal Workers that was voted off comes in and kills everyone.  When a person is voted off, the remaining contestants must pick up the slack for their exiled former co-worker making it progressively harder as the weeks go by.  It’s got all the makings of a mega-hit, an elimination element and a British person addressing people in a pejorative manner, the scenario in which this occurs is irrelevant.  I’ve even got a tentative title, “Cracking the Whip!“.  Seems like a show you would watch right?  I’m thinking it would get enough of a following to be on for at least 3 seasons.

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The 5 Worst College Social Scenes in the Philadelphia area: #5

By: F.X. Galvin

#5 Villanova – Yea this place sucks

This lame university is commonly known as Vill-A-No-Fun. Seriously, this place has to be the most overrated school in the area. It has approximately 8,000 undergraduate and graduate students and has no luck at throwing a decent party. This school has no on-campus social life. None. Students leave this terrible campus for all other local schools or go to the bar.

Yes, the bar scene is half decent, it is the Main Line, but it is not comparable to Center City and Old City. You can only get so much enjoyment from Brownie’s 23 East, Wild Onion (or whatever it is called this week,) and ever other corner shithole on the Main Line. Also, basically none of the abovementioned watering holes are really in walking distance unless you have an off-campus house by one of these bars. So you have to risk a D.U.I. to get a load on because if you stay on campus you will get written up and if you go to a house party it will probably get busted by the lame ass Lower Merion police. It is a no win situation. Also, if you are underage, you take your perfect criminal record in your own hands by going to the bars but L.C.B. constantly raids the little shitty corner bars. Your rich ass will be raking leaves in even richer neighborhoods on Saturday mornings while other rich pricks drive by, and look at you like you just stole their 16 year old daughter’s V-card.

Next, the girls are hot right? Yea but they are pretentious bitches that only care about the size of your wallet, well essentially your father’s wallet. I did bang one Nova slut while in college but I sadly have to admit she was beat up in her face and downstairs. One of those hoagie and a hallway experiences that almost every man has unfortunately participated in. The pretentious attitude continues with the guys, which makes you want the pound the face in of every asshole dressed up in two polos with the collars flipped or rocking a blazer over a t-shirt at Brownie’s. Seriously you all should kill yourself, you losers. You have no standing to act this way. Villanova is an overrated bullshit school. Its not Penn, your not Ivy league, so why do so many of you crave to act that way? You are really not even to close to an Ivy school so knock off your pretentious attitudes.

There is a debate on how other schools in the Philly area are worse than Nova. Really, I disagree and again its my list, fuck you. I have been on the Nova campus plenty of times and it has never been fun. Seriously, look what these assholes do for fun. . . Let’s drive down to the Linc in Chet’s parents BMW with Chadwick, Bradford, and Carlton. When we get there, we should break in the stadium and steal a chair and a beer sign. You morons, you crave the attention of being smart but you do the dumbest possible thing ever. You try to break in a stadium that is littered with security cameras to steal a chair. You could have just asked “Daddy Warbucks” to extort the Eagles for a chair and a beer sign. That is the conclusion on why this school is so lame. When you have to drive 30 minutes to steal a chair to have a good time, it is time to contemplate a transfer.

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Wolfram Alpha – The Answer Engine? Google Killer?

By: Billy Beerslugger

So what is the Wolfram|Alpha?  It is a computational knowledge engine.  Well what the fuck is that, you’re asking?  It’s complicated.  However, from what I gather it’s not unlike a  search engine such as Google.  Where it differs though is it’s use of natural language (in terms of a search query from you the user) to determine answers/results as opposed to keywords like Google.

Wolfram also will try to display a visualization if possible from what you are searching for.  From an article I read, “A better way to think of it is a DWIMM (“do what I might mean”), so if you type in something like “gdp France / Germany”, it calculates and returns a graph of the relative fraction of France’s annual GDP to Germany’s GDP, over the last 30 years or so.  If you just type in “gdp”, it looks up your local host and (in my case) displays the GDP of the USA over the last 30 years, plus various pieces of information about what gross domestic product is, from a mathematical formula perspective but not from a semantic one.  It does not have an ontology, so what it knows about, say, GDP, or population, or stock price, is no more nor less than the equations that involve that term.  One vulnerability that this engenders in Alpha is that errors in the data may go unnoticed for a long time; a positive way of saying this is that one could align Alpha’s terms to an ontology and knowledge base, and use it to catch some fraction of errors as outright implausible violations of basic knowledge (e.g., Miami’s population dropping by exactly a factor a ten during the month of October, 2006.)”

Now how does this effect the search engine landscape? I don’t know if it does.  Google seems to be able to handle a wider range of searches more accurately and Wolfram seems to handle a more finite amount of selected datum a lot better.  Google is not going anywhere any time soon.

I’m not going to pretend I know any more about Wolfram then the people who’s articles I’ve read on it and a Wikipedia post, but there’s a lot of Buzz about this coming from nerdery’s all over the world.

I signed up to be have early release access but I think they are looking for somone with a little more credentials then running a blog.  We’ll see though.

Could Wolfram Alpha be your default search engine in 5 years?  Could it have an IPO ala Google and fetch millions upon millions? Only time will tell.

Note:  Wolfram Alpha will launch sometime this month!

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Philly Bums – It’s a Jungle Out There

crackBy: Billy Beerslugger

I’ll admit while not living in Philly for almost the past year, I missed the bums a little bit.  Most Bums are harmless, they just want money to buy liquor or whatever their drug du jour is.  They are usually too strung out and tired from sleeping outside to pose a valid threat to your well being.  Very rarely you encounter a bum who actually wants food.  They may say they want food to get your money but if you actually try to get them something to eat instead of just giving them money the true intentions become evident.  However, I have encountered some homeless people who really did want food and at that point if I’m not pressed for time I’ll usually get them something small, coffee, a soft pretzel etc.  This has happened maybe 4 or 5 times in my travels.

I’ve heard the  “I need $2.00 to get on the bus/subway so I can get to XYZ place” story from Bum’s and crackheads about 10,000 times.  That’s the standard sob story because it does not deal with food, it deals with transportation.  Obviously you’re not going to give them a ride and at the very least if they get a subway/bus token off of you they’re going to turn right around and sell it for .30 cents less than what it’s worth.  It’s what they do, Hustle.  That’s not working on me, you got legs chief, use them.  It may take you a couple of hours but you’ll get there.

Some Bums will have a gimmick, do flips, tell jokes, juggle etc.  If whatever they are doing makes me laugh or or really blows my skirt up I usually will throw a guy a couple of quarters.  I’m fine as long as I don’t have to come in close proximity with them.  What I won’t do is let them pump my gas or carry anything for me for money.  Not happening.

Crackhead Bum’s is where things get a little sketchy.  These vagrants will approach you in a hurried manor, are persistent, will ask any and every person on the street for money and are generally a little unpredictable.  You gotta watch out for these people because they may have the inclination to get money for the drugs in any way possible given the right situation.  Or they might just be out of their head Cracked Out.  Talking to non existent people, making outrageous statements, speaking in an undecipherable language and looking up in the sky and pointing like they see some sort of flying unicorn.  Crackalackin’ I like to call it.

The best advice I can give you to avoid these beggars is to wear headphones while walking in a Bum Zone.  Even if you don’t have an Ipod just get yourself a pair of headphones, stick the wire in your pocket and if a bum approaches you can blow them off with the old, “Can’t hear you” or “Hey how are you doing” while continuing on your way.  You may be able to get away with just pointing to the headphones, Bums understand if you can’t hear their begging or sob story you  are no good to them.

I’m kind of curious of a place I call Bum City.  It’s a grassy and tree laden area near Vine St. and 15th, right around the 676 exit/entrance.  Bums got tents over there and not just one.  It’s like a miniature town.  It’s great Real Estate too, easy walking distance to Center City, but not in an area where a whole lot of people walk and can get bothered by the bums. I’m guessing that’s why the Cops don’t really bother them there.  At least the previous 2-3 summer’s I’ve seen tents over there.

Being that it’s probably coveted Bum area I wonder if there are some sort of Bum territory wars for the right to reside there.  If you’re sleeping there at night you have to be pretty major in the Bum World.

One of the more outlandish Bum episodes I’ve witnessed was at Checkers on North Broad St.  A Bum had asked for money so my friend had given him the change from the burgers he had just purchased.  Maybe about .17 cents or so.  The Bum was so angry he threw the change at the car as we were driving away.  We stopped and yelled at him and had he not been a crackhead and just a regular guy on the street may have roughed him up a little, but you don’t want to get in a fight with a crackhead.  They’ve got nothing to lose and the chance of some crackhead blood getting on you is a risk you probably shouldn’t take.

Of course there’s good Bum stories too.  After parties at my Fraternity house in college, we had a team of 2 or 3 bums who would clean out the basement. They worked for beer and we never had a problem with them.  I think they took all the cans, crushed them and took them to the recycling center to get money that way too.  Always thinking of a way to make a buck these crazy crackheads!
las vegas cassino

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Samuel Adams Imperial White

btl_iwBy: Billy Beerslugger

The Samuel Adams Imperial White is basically the White Ale that’s available in the Spring only on Steroids and HGH.  It’s 10.3% alcohol by volume. Had 5 of them and Friday night and they are kind of hard to get down the gullet.

The 10.3% abv easily dwarfs Molson XXX’s 7.3% as the strongest beer I’ve profiled on here.  Kind of tastes like vodka a little.

From the website:

  • Color: Hazy Amber
  • Original Gravity: 24.6° P
  • ABV / ABW: 10.3% ABV / 7.9% ABW
  • BUs: 15
  • SRM: 14
  • Calories per 12 oz.: 328
  • Serving Temperature: 52° – 57°
  • Malt Type and Varieties: Two-row Harrington, Metcalfe and Malted Wheat
  • Hop Varieties: Hallertau Mittelfrueh
  • Yeast Strain: Top-Fermenting Ale yeast
  • First Brewed: 2009
  • Availability: Year Round

Apparently they tell you that you should sip it and enjoy it more like a wine, I happened to chug the first one on a dare before knowing the alcohol content.  It was formula for getting instantly wasted.  I was supposed to go to the bar but after finishing my 3rd Imperial White (plus pre-gaming with 5-6 Yuengling) I was told I starting slurring my words. Also at 328 calories a beer I probably gained a pound or 5.

I ‘m thinking about doing some kind of ranking system for the beer posts but I’m way too lazy for that right now.  Something I’ll keep up in the old noodle though.

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The 5 Worst College Social Scenes in the Philadelphia area.

collegepartyBy: F.X. Galvin

I have decided to set the stage for a five day installment next week for the five worst colleges to have a good time at in the Philadelphia area. I thought this to be a helpful tool for graduating seniors, students looking to transfer, and people who have already graduated from one of these institutions who need a good laugh on how bad a school sucks at life. This is a guide so boozehounds avoid lame colleges like a bad case of genital warts. It also gives to you the heads up, not visit any one your friends at one of these terrible schools. I wanted to give kids direction on which schools that are just a terrible time. . . Schools where you will be constantly harassed for getting shitfaced. Let’s face it, the real point of college for an 18 year old is to get wasted, hook up, maybe do drugs and as secondary priority to get an education. What better way to inspire the youth?

Today, I will chronicle the schools that are not on this list and why. Next, week I will delve into why those five schools suck so much. In total, I have thought of 20 schools in the Philadelphia area. Here is the list of 15 that will not be on the list.

Obviously Temple and West Chester will not be on the list. Temple has frat houses all within walking distance of its beautiful North Philly campus. To get in trouble for boozing here, you have to be a public mess or throw a banger Jeremy Piven style. (which has happened, ask Billy Beerslugger). Also, Center City is a $5. cab ride away which provides a more than adequate nightlife. Really, what’s not to like? West Chester is known to be the party mecca in the Philly area. It is a state school with about 13,000 students. This place has everything from frat houses, straight party houses, and a town full of bars that run college specials on a regular basis. More panties drop at these two schools than a swinger orgy with unlimited coke and e-bombs.

Next La Salle, St, Joseph’s and Philadelphia University will not be on the list. La Salle is in a crazy neighborhood and also can have crazy parties. Like Temple, this place has other things to worry about, like felony level crimes so alcoholic students are not high on its priority list. St. Joe’s and Philly U will also not be on the list. Both schools on campus parties suck. However, both schools have great off campus parties. Both universities flood Manayunk, which gives students houses and bars to get wasted at without being bothered.

Arcadia, Cabrini, Neumann and Widener are safe from party embarrassment. The enrollment of these schools are 3,600, 3,100, 2,600 and 5,000 respectfully. (Widener’s total enrollment is higher but I excluded the population from satellite campuses.) All of the abovementioned schools are small but have decent parties one way or another. Outside of Widener house and frat parties theses schools give you a different look at getting sauced. The other three schools usually have the same result as big universities, just with a smaller size party. Students get wasted, then have unprotected sex leading to regret the next day. Great. . . if you are just visiting but may lead to embarrassment if you are a student there. Like high school, the whole student body will know that you banged a fat chick within 48 hours. (kinda sucks, trust me on that one, I went to undergrad at a school that size). Sometimes these parties are small but pack a big punch.

Now here is where it gets tough. I gave a pass to Immaculata and Rosemont. Rosemont is an all girls school. Really, how can rip it if that is what you want. Obviously no one really lives up there so no one would actually go there to have fun. Immaculata just went co-ed within the last decade. The school currently has under 1000 undergraduate students and ultimately should be given a chance. My prediction is that within another five years parties will be comparable to the drinking scene at Arcadia, Cabrini, and Neumann.

Also, regretfully I gave Penn, Drexel, University of the Sciences, and University of the Arts a pass. Some people may think I’m wrong here but I have reasons people. I actually have had a good time at a couple of Drexel parties. Also, guys if you are “normal,” (sorry for freaks who don’t categorize normal as normal and think they are normal and everyone else has issues, your not, face it), you have a solid chance of getting laid. Even though Drexel is annually on the ugliest campus in America list some of the girls are actually fuckable and they are tired of looking at trendy, artsy guys who look like French painters. Also, like some of the schools in the top five as well as Rosemont, no students really go to Penn, University of Sciences or Arts to get banged up. Believe or not these schools do have parties but you or no one you would associate with would ever attend. They get down in their own way. Picture the Asian party in “Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle.” Plus, they are all within the city and close to an above-average bar seen. I think I will receive some criticism for the last three schools over #5 on the list but fuck you, it is my list.

Well now you are trying to figure out what five schools are on this list. Just a couple of hints. Three schools are off the Main Line. One school is in Philadelphia but not Center City. The other school is in the suburbs, approximately 20 minutes from Center City. On Monday, I will feature #5.

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Swine Flu: Chemtrails? Bio-Weapon?

chemtrailsBy: Billy Beerslugger

So over the weekend or sometime late last week was the first time I heard about Swine Flu (technically influenza A virus subtype H1N1). I’ll admit I was joking about it, asking my buddy if one of the symptoms was excessive flatulence since I was very gassy after a heavy night of boozing.

Now though, it’s not really a laughing matter.  The World Health Organization is saying that a pandemic is imminent.

A pandemic for those of you keeping score is described as an epidemic of infectious disease that spreads through populations across a large region; for instance a continent, or even worldwide.

Swine Flu is endemic of Pigs and rarely infects humans.  It is of high probability that this virus must have mutated to be able to infect humans or been engineered that way.

I understand how it got from Mexico to Texas, that’s easy.  What I’m saying or at last what is fishy to me is how it spread so fast from Mexico to New York and now to Chicago.  I don’t think it has anything to do with flying on airplanes because most of the people reported to have acquired Swine Flu have been kids.  Spain reported the first case of Swine Flu in Europe and the person had not even been to Mexico.

So besides person to person contact, how are these virii being spread.  If the person from Spain who was not in Mexico has it, how did it get there?  How did it get from Mexico to New York with no infections in states in between?

I’ve been manning the Conspiracy theory channels and one possible cause is Chemtrails.  The chemtrail conspiracy theory suggests that some contrails (condensed water vapor trails from plane engine exhaust)  are actually chemicals or biological agents deliberately sprayed at high altitudes for a purpose undisclosed to the general public.  Some say Chemtrails are used to control Weather Patterns some say they may be used to combat global warming.

Some argue that we are being conditioned to accept these trails in the skies as normal by inserting them into movies and advertisements.

However, who is to say they are not being used to deliver the Swino Virus?  It’s possible but is it probable?  What if some sort of terrorist group is perpetrating this Swino Virus as a Bio-weapon, the government is covering it up and Jack Bauer is the only one who is keeping us safe?

I don’t have any proof but if this is true you heard it here first on Beerslugger!

This Youtube series really caught my eye on Chemtrails.  A little long (27 parts) and somewhat dry, boring but worth at least seeing some of what people are reporting on.

At least some local news stations are reporting on it.

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The Girlfriend Experience

By: Billy Beerslugger

Steven Soderbergh is an Academy Award Winning director of such films as Sex Lies and Videotape, Traffic, Erin Brockovich & The Oceans 11 franchise.  His latest film, The Girlfriend Experience is a film about a $2,000 an hour call who juggles a boyfriend and the demands of her profession.

The film stars Porn Actress Sasha Grey in the lead.  As far as I can tell this is the first major mainstream release of  a movie with a Porn Star as the lead, or at least a Porn Star who still works in Porn.  I don’t know if you think it’s significant but I think it definitely reflects a change in the way the mainstream now more readily accepts people in the adult industry.

While the movie does have a Porn Star as the lead it is said to have very little nudity and no sex.

In case your a porn junkie like me here’s some links to Sasha Grey’s work.

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Cracktacular

crackBy: Billy Beerslugger

So I’m reading some stuff today and come across that the president is pushing for more lenient crack cocaine laws.  Now yea I’ll agree that the law is a little scewed, putting crack cocaine offenders away longer for less amounts, I get that.

What I do not get is why we are lessening Crack Cocaine sentences and not lengthening Cocaine sentences.  Seems logical to me.  Yes I do have sympathy for the “Treatment Movement”, where instead of throwing people in jail, putting them into rehab.  I do think that some people come out of prison worse than they were before they went in.

Some statistics I’ve seen suggest a better rate of non-repeat offending after rehab as opposed to jail.  But statistics can be misleading and subjective in terms of the people doing the survey as well as the people chosen for the sample.

Federal law currently has a system in place which 5 grams of crack gets the same minimum sentence as 500 grams of coke, according to the article in the link above.  So there does need to be some reform, but I’m not sure lessening sentences is the way to go.

I understand the penal system is overcrowded.  I understand it is a lot of money to have someone in jail for 5 years.  Is that the answer though to the Crack Cocaine problem, reduced sentences, more crackheads on the street?  It’s bad enough that the people selling the stuff and the people in the neighborhoods they own will not narc anyone out, now you’re just making it more of an incentive to not talk to the police.

To me it’s kind of like telling a kid “If you do XYZ you’re going to be grounded for 2 weeks instead of 5”.  Well now the kid is going to think about the situation a little more.  Maybe he should steal the case of beer from his dad, 2 weeks of being grounded isn’t that bad.

No the current laws are not fair, but boost up sentences on Cocaine and not lessen sentences on Crack.

But I could be wrong….