FireThunder

Cubs are up 11-1 in the ninth against the Cardinals so we have Jon Berti making his first appearance as a pitcher throwing knuckleballs. Cubs also set a team record with eight home runs.

Somebody check my math for me? Dio-era Rainbow + Sabbath = Castle Rat

In amidst the new beers I've tried recently, I've found a little treasure. One of the local grocery stores has been selling 24 packs of Pseudo Sue from Toppling Goliath on clearance for $30. Pseudo Sue is one of my favorite beers, an unfiltered pale ale that is crisp and very crushable. It has been revamped several times including a double IPA version called King Sue and a DDH. The DDH version is potentially my top ranked beer of all time but it's a fairly rare find and a bit expensive. I've bought two cases of it so far and I'm seriously wondering if I should run back there before they sell out. LOL

Listening to Spotify at work has opened me up to new and older bands I never really gave a chance. With that said... how did I not know how great Testament is?

Iyo/Jordynne vs GIULIA/Roxy was a fucking hoot. Iyo and Jordynne working together like a team that had been teaming regularly with tandem moves... just fantastic stuff.

As an aside, Spotify started putting Lakini's Juice on my 90s playlists. I am not complaining, tho. The episode of One Hit Wonderland on Flagpole Sitta was an eye opener for me. A music critic makes a hit song and it haunts him for the rest of his life.

Terrible news for Justin Steele and the Cubs: Steele is having elbow surgery and is out the rest of the year. Colin Rea is taking his start tonight against the Dodgers.

Niko has been known to bust out a few verses of Crawling in between songs at live shows. So today, Electric Callboy uploaded an acoustic version to Youtube.

On a trip to the liquor store the next town over, I found several new selections to try. One that really stood out to me: Nilla Nectar from Kros Strain. It's a hazy IPA with vanilla and for some reason, it works really well. The vanilla stands out against the background laid by the haze. For those who want a straight up hazy IPA, I also picked up a pack of Juicy Bits IPA from WeldWerks. It says what it is on the can: very hazy, very juicy.

Volbeat can be hit or miss for me but the riff in this new single is tight as hell.

I've had a couple of bottle of barleywine from my local brewery sitting around since 2020. I finally decided to brush the dust off of one and crack it open. I swear it tasted better than when I had it from the tap way back when. The acrid flavor I remember seemed to have mellowed with age and it was a super smooth drink for an 11.5% beer. The remaining bottle is one that's already been barrel-aged. I think I'll save that one for a really special occasion.

A perfectly cromulent cover. (Or as somebody said in the comments: "Predictably combining Sepultura and Ministry basically you end up with Prong".

This week, we got the first title crossover in Hearthstone history. The most recent Hearthstone set was The Great Beyond which is set in space. On Tuesday, Blizzard released a mini-set of cards featuring characters from Starcraft. It's breathed some life into a pretty stagnant game. The Great Beyond was largely ignored the past two months outside of a handful of cards because it isn't as powerful as previous sets but a lot of the cards in the mini-set help flesh out some of the mechanics. For example, the Terran cards help power the starship mechanic, which was supposed to be one of big selling points of The Great Beyond. Also, for old heads like me, playing a card and turning my character into Jim Reynor is pretty damn cool. After watching streamers play Gwent, I have been playing it again the past few weeks. After CDPR shut down production on the game, they turned control of Gwent to the community. This lead to the Balance Council. Every month, players vote on nerfs and buffs and it turns out the community that plays the game has a pretty good idea of how to keep it balanced. The meta is wide open with many competitive decks and only a few power outliers. I built a Scoia'tael elves deck to do some quests and wound up winning several games with it much to my surprise.

Electric Callboy checks into 2025.

The thing I like about craft beer is variety. I try not to drink the same thing too often. I'll drink practically anything but I prefer dark beers like stouts, porters, black ales. I bemoan the fact that hazy IPAs are still dominant, but I buy my share of them when I need to fill my beer fridge, so hello, it's me, I'm the problem. I bought a six pack of Jai Alai on sale at one of my local stores on Friday, I had forgotten how damn good that beer is. Beers that have changed: a local brewery has a beer called Tropical Burn, originally a mango/habanero DIPA weighing in at 8.5 ABV. However, a few years ago, they removed the habanero so now it's just an overly sweet DIPA. NDH band HÄMATOM has a few songs about beer. They wrote one in a friendly competition with another band (Saltatio Mortis who appear in the video dressed as maids) titled It's Raining Beer.

Happy early Christmas to me and all others who love The Final Sacrifice.

I loved that it took Jesse about two minutes into the show to crack a fat joke about Dusty. He certainly exceeded my expectations in the main event. "Feed off (the fans) all you want, win the damn match!" Simon Miller calls Chelsea Green "The Maximizer of Minutes" and he's not wrong. It's great to see somebody who's done so much work since she was rehired get rewarded with an inaugural title run. A really fun show from top to bottom.

Bloodywood drops another banger with uplifting lyrics, this time with Babymetal in tow.

From Zero comes out on Friday but another video was posted by Linkin Park today. If the four songs that have been released are any indication, this album is going to be a banger.

Card Shop Simulator is pretty... uh... engaging. Sell some stuff, crack some packs, chase smelly customers with air freshener. Repeat until you look at the clock and say "how long have I been doing this for?" The developer's roadmap for the game seems really ambitious (making Tetramon a playable game). I'm curious to see how much they can accomplish. I started playing in the closed beta for The Bazaar yesterday. Developed by a former Hearthstone pro, it's a rogue-like autobattler where you build your hero with random events then fight other players. PVP is asynchronous, so if you have to take a break in the middle of a run, you can pick it up later. Only three playable heroes at the moment but the gameplay is pretty complex.

New Bloodywood on Friday! And new Slaughter to Prevail today (with BERSERK music video)!

The second single off Linkin Park's From Zero has hit the internet, in partnership with League of Legends. Definitely feels like Meteora-era LP.

I'm down with it. Album comes out in November. Six city world tour this year with a larger tour next year.