Bottomshelf Beer Reviews: Miller Genuine Draft

About ten or fifteen years ago it seemed to me like Miller Genuine Draft was everywhere.  It might have just been that people stopped buying it for my family parties, but lately I haven’t seen MGD around nearly as much.  I don’t know it’s just that Miller is spending all of their advertising dollars trying to convince everyone that Miller Lite is masculine and something that straight guys should, nay must, drink, but I can’t remember the last time I saw an for MGD during a football game.  They certainly still sell the stuff, so I guess I’m going to have to drink it.

Hello sexy lady from the 90's, nice shorts.

The first thing I noticed was that MGD has a ton of flavor.  It tastes kind of like a more full bodied Miller High Life, which makes sense because MGD was originally called “Miller High Life Genuine Draft” when it was released in 1985 (Bears!)  It tastes pretty good at first, great even.  Honestly after the first sip I thought I was going to have to reevaluate my stance on MGD then the aftertaste hit: textbook poo aftertaste. There are plenty of bottomshelf beers with aftertastes that are far worse, but MGD’s really has that unique “poo-ness,”

When I complain about a poo aftertaste the most common question I get asked is, “how do you know what poo tastes like?”  Well, funny story.  When we moved into the house I lived in for the majority of my formative years we inherited an old clubhouse in the backyard.  It would have been cool but it was completely unusable.  Even new, the clubhouse would have been full of exposed nails, and not even the great Lionel Richie himself could have danced on that ceiling without a tetanus shot.  As it was when we acquired it, the clubhouse had turned rotten and it was full of goddamned hornets.

Unfortunately, in real life hornets have no casting cost

What are you smiling at?

Hornets are second only to possums as the most vile of God’s creations.  They don’t make honey.  They don’t pollinate flowers.  And they don’t turn into butterflies (not that bees do, but still.)  They just fucking sting you till you die.  As you’ve no doubt surmised, I can’t stand hornets (and WASPS for that matter, but that’s just because I distrust Protestants.)  At five years old I was no different, so my friends and I got to thinking of a way to rid ourselves of the hornet menace once and for all.  One of us struck on the notion that if we didn’t like the smell of dogshit, hornets probably didn’t like it either.  Next thing you know we’re picking up dog poo on a stick and throwing it through the clubhouse window.  Genius. 

Genuine class

The plan started out well enough, well as well as any plan can go that involves running around throwing dogshit on a stick.  Unfortunately I zigged when I should have zagged, and got a mouthful of dogpoop for my troubles.  It’s about as gross as it sounds and tasted just as good as you think it would.  I hightailed it into the house and washed my own mouth out with soap, because toothpaste just wasn’t going to cut it.  The only good thing about the whole ordeal was that I was really young and it happened outside of school, otherwise I’d be “that guy that got a mouthful of dogshit” till the day I died.  In conclusion I guess you could say I’m somewhat of an expert on whether or not something tastes like dogshit, and MGD’s aftertaste certainly does.    

Ginuine cupcakes

On the other hand it has a great looking website.  It may not seem like much of a compliment in light of my dog poo comments, but it was very refreshing to see an aesthetically pleasing bottomshelf beer website.  Most beer websites are all crudded up with annoying flash animation and stupid sound effects, like they were designed for someone that huffs roach spray out of a paper bag.  MGD’s website on the other hand, was great and it helpfully links to MGD Canada’s facebook page, which raised a lot more questions than it answered.  Is it run by Canadians or real Americans?  I bring this up because they talk surprisingly little about maple syrup, moose shit, or Canadian National Treasure Alanis Morissette.

Sarah Chalke, one of my favorite Canadians

Miller Genuine Draft may have kind of a fecal aftertaste, and it may not confer all of the totally-hetero-super-powers that Miller Lite does.  It’s still a hell of a lot better than Miller Lite, and you can do a lot worse as far as bottomshelf beers go, and that’s the Genuine truth! (I’ve been waiting the entire post to say that.  Now that I’ve done it I feel kind of empty.  This is an existential crisis.  Let’s end this.)

...and we'll bring it home with a little more Sarah Chalke

Favorite Video Games: Wolfenstein 3D (PC) 1992

 I salute you for dressing in that outfit

Three things I love about World War II

3. The The M4A3R3 “Zippo” Tank

The only thing cooler than a tank is a tank with a fucking flamethrower

2. Ball turret gunners

You have to have brass balls to lock yourself in a plastic ball without a parachute

1. We won.

Score

My absolute favorite thing in the entirety of human history is winning World War II. For me, nothing cures a bad mood like watching the Nazis lose on the History Channel (please stop showing “Pickers” fleecing old men out of historical relics.) World War II and the victory thereof, was the ultimate triumph of good over evil, and the marked ascendency of the United States as a global Super Power. As to how that relates to video games…

Wolfenstein 3D (PC) 1992

I can't look at this picture without hearing the theme song.

Wolfenstein or Wolf 3D was released on May 5, 1992, but I got it for Christmas in either the 4th grade (late ’92) or the 5th grade (late ’93.) As I’ve mentioned before, I kind of sucked at platform jumpers, but it turned out I was pretty good at Wolfenstein. Resultantly, Wolfenstein was the first video game I really got into, and I would play it for hours on end.

Nazi scum!

It’s true that puzzles in first person shooters have gotten more complex than Wolfenstein’s standard “finding the key that opens the door in front of the elevator,” but all the basic mechanics of Modern Warfare and Half-Life 2 are pretty much present and accounted for. The game even had realistic gunshot sound effects and voice acting; something I didn’t have a chance to appreciate until I got a sound card a few years later. For 2 years I had to contend with a PC speaker, which had two settings: “off” and “SKULL SPLITTING!” and sound quality ranging from shrill beeps to dial-up-internet-esque computer gargles. Wolf3D was cinematic too; to this day it’s the only game I can think of that has missions that end on a true freeze frame, like a movie from the 80’s or an episode of Degrassi.

"Don't you forget about me..."

It was like nothing I’d played before. Most games, especially the ones that I was exposed to previously tended to involve killing things that were decidedly not human. To put it in perspective: in Bubble Bobble you imprisoned monsters in bubbles and when you popped them they turned into candy. Imagine the childish glee I felt as I brutally filled Nazis full of lead. The game’s about 20 years old, so I don’t think I’m giving too much away when I tell you that when you kill Hitler he melts into a pile of gore and then the game is kind enough to give you a fucking instant replay. Maybe Hitler didn’t really get machine gunned to death by a ten year old, but it would’ve been a cooler ending to the war than just committing suicide (like a bitch.)

"Let's see that again!"

I fell in love with the game instantly, but as much as I liked shooting Nazis the important thing was that they were Nazis. Prior to Wolfenstein I’d never heard of the Nazis before, so I asked my dad who they were. He explained that they tried to take over the world, like a bunch of comic book villains. I mean seriously, who tries to take over the world? Let’s see, there’s Doctor Doom, Darkseid, M. Bison, the Daleks, Cobra Commander, S.P.E.C.T.R.E, Brain (of Pinky and the Brain), and Adolf Hitler. When I inquired as to what stopped the Nazis he explained that men of his father’s generation fought and defeated them. I was shocked. My own grandfather served as an airplane mechanic during the war, and although he died before I was born, I couldn’t believe that someone I was related to helped defeat an group of people so evil they didn’t even seem real . My curiosity was piqued to say the least. I read every book I could on the subject, and eventually I graduated with a BA in history from Illinois State.

My Grandfather, Uncle Jerry, and my Grandmother

Wolfenstein 3D is the only game that I can honestly say changed my life for the better. (The time I’ve spent playing video games instead of doing homework is staggering.) It kicked off my interest in WWII and history, but it’s also a sweet game. There’s a reason it’s been ported to every system worth its salt, including the iPad, X-box 360, and PS3. As DLC on modern platforms it’s pretty cheap and convenient to check it out, but it can be expensive and inconvenient if you want to play the Atari Jaguar port for some reason.

A Jaguar cost like 300,000 tickets at Hollywood Park and I wanted one so bad.  Crappy system though.

...also, remember when Christina Aguilera was really hot?  Now I wouldn't touch her with yours.

Bottomshelf Beer Reviews: Buck Rang Light Video

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Bottomshelf Beer Reviews: Bud Light Platinum

"15-yard penalty for not writing a football sexual pun caption."

Last Sunday the New York Football Giants played the hated New England Patriots in the Super Bowl.  It was a good game, but seeing as it was the most watched event in American history I really don’t feel the need to rehash it in any sort of detail.  For the benefit of the international readers of this blog: The Giants won and I got pretty drunk; also the commercials kind of sucked this year.  Advertising during the most watched event in American history is kind of a big deal, but this year the commercials were pretty forgettable.

How is a commerical without sexy ladies and dudes in cowboy hats supposed to excite me?

That's more like it

I don’t know whether it was the crappiness of the commercials or the fact that I spent every commercial break loudly telling my buddy Brian about the American Flagg hardcover reissue and enumerating the finer points of Troll 2, but I completely missed the commercial unveiling Anheuser-Busch’s new beer, Bud Light Platinum.  Resultantly, I got blindsided by the stuff a week or so later when I went to buy myself a case of Schlitz.  I mean blindsided in a much more literal sense than most people do.  The box was really shiny, like the inside of that briefcase in Pulp Fiction.  The new bottles looked sleek and hi-tech like a concept car or a really high-end vibrator.  Was this new look justified?  Was it the same shit in a different package like every fucking U2 album for the last 15 years?  Or is it nuanced and different like Ms. Pacman; the Stefan Urquell to Bud Light’s Steve Urkel?

How the fuck was this crappy show so popular for so long?

Astute readers are well aware of my longstanding hatred of light beer, due to its lower alcohol content and lack of flavor. Bud Light Platinum solves half the problem by offering 6% ABV (Bud Light is only 4.2% ABV and Budweiser is only 5%,) which means less trips to the bathroom.  Personally I hate going to the bathroom, unless I can take a nice long dump.  As for the flavor, Bud Light Platinum is pretty good, highly carbonated, a little sweet for my taste but definitely better than Bud Light.  It might be because at 137 calories it’s only 7 calories “lighter” than regular Budweiser.  On the other hand it’s only 27 calories more than Bud Light’s 110 calories and Bud Light tastes like they pour it down a homeless man’s asscrack before they bottle it.  For those concerned with maintaining their girlish figure Bud Light Platinum is only 22.83 calories per percentage point of alcohol versus Bud Light’s 26.2cal/1%ABV.  Now there is absolutely, scientifically no reason to drink Bud Light, except for the price.

A couple jugs of Bud Light Platinum

More MoonPies Jeeves!

Platinum beer demands a platinum price.  While I think Bud Light Platinum is pretty good, it’s not $12 a twelve-pack good.  For that kind of money it should suck your dick or do some light yard work. Are there really that many people out there that want cheap beer at a premium price?  If so I’ve got a few $7 MoonPies in my pantry.  The only reason BLPlatinum even qualifies as a bottomshelf beer is because the box says “Bud Light.”  For the kind of price their charging you could buy a twelve-pack of Guinness, or if you’re like me, a 30 pack of LaCrosse Lager.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s not as bad as those ivory-tower-snobs on beeradvocate.com claim; it’s just about $3 or $4 more expensive than it should be. 

"Bud Light Platinum? What a lark!"

Torgo

That should change soon enough.  Typically if a beer costs too much it either comes down in price or disappears (the invisible hand of capitalism at work.)  I hope it’s the former because I thought it was pretty good, and if it sticks around it’ll piss off the kind of dick-beater that calls Bud Light Platinum an “affront to civilization.”  (the only beer that qualifies as an affront to civilization is whatever beer Torgo drinks, because just look at that guy.  Creepy, right?)  In the meantime, I’d say drink something cheaper.

BLASTOFF!

Favorite Video Games: TIE Fighter (PC) 1993

This is exactly what my dreams look like.

Most normal people that grew up in the 80’s and 90’s owned a Nintendo Entertainment System when they were a kid, and I was no different (see previous post); however unlike all the other normal people I knew I didn’t upgrade to a Sega Genesis or Super Nintendo.  My mom felt such a purchase was a “wasteful” use of the money I received for making my first Holy Communion.  I have no recollection what I eventually ended up spending my communion money on, but I guarantee that if it had been a Sega Genesis I would remember it fondly to this day. 

How many gently used sex dolls can I buy for $5?

As a result of all of this I didn't own a current video game console after the NES until I bought a Playstation 2 in college.  So for the decade or so after most people sold their Nintendos at a garage sale I played a lot of computer games. The first one I'll be reviewing is:

TIE Fighter (PC) 1994

TIE fighter was originally released in 1994; the same year as Mortal Kombat II and Sonic the Hedgehog 3, the height of the 16-bit era.  As much as I wanted a Sega, I have to admit that a game like TIE Fighter was far more sophisticated than anything a home console could handle.  TIE Fighter utilized a full keyboard and joystick to create one of the best space-flight-combat-sims of all time.  You couldn’t exactly capture the experience of being a pilot in the Imperial Navy with six buttons and some arrow keys.

Badass

Die Rebel scum!

That’s part of what makes TIE Fighter so freaking sweet.  It’s one of the best representations of the Star Wars universe in any game before or since.  The graphics, AI, controls, writing, and game play were light years parsecs (a unit of time not distance) ahead of anything available on a console at the time, and all of those elements worked in conjunction to create a truly immersive experience.  You start the game as cannon fodder for the Emperor and end the game flying missions with Darth Vader, and I think that’s a big part of the game’s charm; for once you’re not a Jedi or a nigh-invulnerable bounty hunter, you’re a regular pilot.  It’s unclear what kind of benefits or retirement plan a fighter pilot could earn a long time ago in a galaxy far far away, but adjusted for inflation I bet it was worth a lot of space dollars.

TIE Fighter was also unique among Star Wars games, until Knights of the Old Republic came out about a decade later, in that you can play as a bad guy for a majority of the game.  More importantly the bad guys aren’t portrayed as totally evil.  Check out the opening text (the game begins around the same time as The Empire Strikes Back):

At the battle of Yavin

Rebel terrorists, aided by

spies and traitors within the

Empire, struck a cowardly

blow at the new symbol of

Imperial power... The Death Star!

Darth Vader brought swift justice

to the Rebels by destroying their

main base on Hoth. The pitiful

remnants of the Alliance have

now scattered to the Outer Rim.

In the days ahead, the Emperor

will call upon the Imperial Navy

to eradicate the last vestiges

of rebellion and restore law

and order to the galaxy!

Hello, sexy TIE Pilot

How cool is that?  Star Wars tends to be as preachy and black and white as anything this side of the Bible: the good guys are good, and the bad guys are evil and deserve to die.  Conversely, in TIE Fighter the Empire stands for law, order, and justice.  It stands to reason that a lot of people in the Star Wars universe must have felt that way for the Empire to stay in power as long as it did, assuming you’re a giant dork that contemplates the motivations and feelings of fictional people in a fictional universe.  Complex motivations and developed back stories are something of a rarity in video games today, let alone in a Star Wars game made in 1994.

Do I kill a bus full of war orphans or not?  What a complex moral dilemma.

That’s all well and good, but what really catapults TIE Fighter into my upper echelon of video games is my unconditional love of Star Wars.  I was born in 1983 and I don’t remember ever not knowing every single line from the original trilogy.  I grew up watching those movies, and when I was about 12 years old or so I became pretty obsessed.  I read a bunch of the novels in the expanded universe and played the shit out of TIE Fighter.  The only thing that saved me from becoming a total weirdo was my even bigger obsession with women’s breasts.

Click the pic for the animation of Alison Brie's boobies

In the entire Star Wars trilogy there’s only a few scenes of Princess Leia in that sexy metal bikini.  To see anything more than that I had to either start reading creepy fan fiction or go out and develop a personality.  I chose the latter option, but I still love Star Wars, and by extension TIE Fighter.  If you haven’t played it I think you can still get it pretty easily.  Check it out.  You won't be disappointed.  Until next time…

Oh baby I hear the blues a-callin’

Tossed salad and scrambled eggs.

Mercy

Frasier has left the building!

Bottomshelf Beer Reviews: Classic Ice

A classic babe from classic Doctor Who

I consider myself a big fan of the classics: classic literature, classic rock, classic video games, and classic horror movies; as you’ve no doubt surmised on account of all the incessant references to the aforementioned classics littered throughout this blog.  Recently I found myself in a classic horror movie type situation.  I was swimming in a Black Lagoon shopping for a case of delicious beer.  Imagine my horror when I got to the beer section and saw the number of the beast 666, or more accurately 6% 6% 6%: three cases of Classic Ice.  Shit.

If you play the album backwards, there's totally a warning not to drink Classic Ice

Before that fateful day I’d never heard of Classic Ice, and if it was up to me I would not have chosen to explore the eldritch forbidden secrets of a 30 pack of Classic Ice.  Honestly, I just wanted to buy a case of Schlitz and get the hell out of there, but when you see a small shipment of some mystery brew at the grocery store there’s a better than even chance that you’ll never see it again.  Most people take this as a good thing, but as a man who reviews bottomshelf beers I knew I couldn’t let an opportunity like that pass me by.  Now I know how that guy in Call of Cthulhu felt.  

I took one for the team and googled "sexy Cthulhu"  this was the only picture that didn't make me want to throw up

 Under normal circumstances I’d be kind of excited to find a new beer for this blog, but not a whole 30 pack of the stuff.  What if the beer sucks?  I’ll be stuck trying to pawn off 29 cans of putrid swill at every party for the next sixth months.  There’s also the whole “number of the beast” thing (each of the three boxes advertised that Classic Ice contained 6% alcohol.)  Although printing the percentage of alcohol on the label is common in Europe, in America it seems to mostly be a marketing tool to attract only the most wretched and vile of God’s creations (hobos, frat boys, and teenagers.)  As a general rule, if a beer advertises how much alcohol it has and not how tasty it is, it probably tastes like carrion and shit.

Typical Classic Ice drinker.  Note the three empty bottles of Classic Ice

You know how in some horror movies there’s a twist ending?  Like in Friday the 13^th: A New Beginning when it turns out that guy dressed as Jason, and not Jason is murdering all those troubled teens?  Or in Jaws when it turns out that the shark is actually Brody’s dad?  Well, Classic Ice is more like an M. Night Shyamalan movie; you think it’s going to suck and then it totally sucks.  I was expecting it to be bad, but this shit is the “Mark Wahlberg talking to a plastic tree” of shitty beers.  If Classic Ice was a movie, it’d be Sucker Punch only with killer plants.  I only managed to choke down one or two cans of the stuff, and the only other person I could get to even try Classic Ice threw it up all over my backyard.

Do not be fooled by the pictures Sucker Punch fucking sucked.  It probably would have been worse with killer plants.

Classic Ice smells fruity and disgusting, like rotten produce.  If you smelled it in a salad you would throw that shit away.  The flavor is artificial and weird.  It almost tastes like a good beer, but at the same time it doesn’t taste good at all.  It tastes like beer the same way Banana Laffy Taffy tastes like actual bananas, only disgusting not delicious.

 Q:  What did one Yeti say to the other?

A: Did you stick your anus in my beer or is it just Classic Ice?

-Jeff Smith age 8

There are no jokes on the side of the can.  Classic Ice tastes similar to Gameday Ice, but I didn’t have pour it down the drain so it’s at least a little bit better.  Although it tastes very different I’d put it right around Steel Reserve in terms of flavor quality on the bottomshelf beer spectrum.

Real classic ice

A weird drunk that tries to warn everyone of their impending doom is a classic horror movie staple, and since I don’t see him around… YOU’RE DOOMED! YOU’RE ALL DOOMED!  CLASSIC ICE IS EVIL…I mean…AWFUL!  CLASSIC ICE IS AWFUL!  NILBOG IS GOBLIN SPELLED BACKWARDS!  Ia-R'lyehl Cihuiha flgagnl id Ia!