SeanMike

Yep, I'll be there this weekend, not sure of my exact hours.  We're open 10-11 on Saturday and 12-6 on Sunday.  We just had out soft opening on Friday and it went pretty well.  Our tap lines aren't in yet, and not sure what the ETA is on those, but there should be "something" to sample if you stop in over the weekend.

Thanks for the info, I'll let you know.

It was often to play in smaller venues that didn't have room for the whole show, and also to avoid the overhead of costumes, fluids, etc.

I wish I could remember the name of the club in Richmond I saw them the most in. It was tiny, and the smoke would get so thick that we'd break off filters from cigarettes to breath through at times. At one show Brockie had a golf club and wiffle golf balls he was hitting into the crowd...I was front and center, so I never got hit.

Dave Brockie Experience, Diarrhea of a Madman, 2001. (Technically, I believe, before Violence Has Arrived.)

So GWAR used to play out of costume occasionally as RAWG, "the ultimate GWAR cover band". Eventually (it seems like to me), they just said fuck it, let's play as a three piece. It's Brad (the drummer), Mike (the guitarist), and Dave. Also to note: most of this songs are less than 2 minutes.

1. 40,000 Times - Honestly, I think anyone who has come out of a relationship that was mostly sex might like this song. Yes, you've had sex a bunch. "Sex with you/really wasn't that great/40,000 times".

2. Too Much Stuff - I love how Dave lists all the random things that lead him to have "Too Much Stuff". But it also talks about how you get addicted to stuff, and has random Derks lyrics.

3. You Want To Suck My Dick  - Clearly, no matter how slow it starts, it's a bit confused about who is sucking who. But remember: he's not gay.

4. Pants - Uh, his pants are falling down.

5. Faggot on Fire - Bilbo Baggins? Anyways.

6. Helium Creed - I think they pretty much admit this song makes no sense.

7. Beat Stall - And uh yeah, do you need more info?

8. The Dance of Europe - Given that Dave's Irish, it's a bit funnier, it's how Europe is different and how we "laughed when the Concorde fell down". Also, more about Bilbo Baggins. Also, I don't know what it's really about other than Europeans hating us, and random brass instruments in the song. "We love them for their beer and their weed/they hate us for making them bleed". .... ("They hate us for the bombs they use/but they're to blame for gassing the Jews")

9. Iranian masturbator - Uh. Yup. At 4+ minutes, a bit more "epic" of a song...

10. Washing yourself - No, really, I have no goddamn idea. Another 4+ minute song that starts off weird, and then it just sucks. No. it's just awful.

11. Servant of Death's head - A song about WW2. And kind of awesome, while not glamorizing anything. it's also an awesome 2 minutes of thrash.

12. Two smart guys fight (about Michelangelo) - An accurate title, scarily enough. 40 seconds of thrash, 30 some seconds about Michelangelo and gayness, then a few seconds of thrash.

13. The Pennington Lark - It has been flat out said this song is meaningless and means nothing. Yes, I meant it that way.

14. I clean up real good - HAHAHAHA. "Insert self-deprecating imagery here."

15. Great news - If you get past the voicemail - actually kind of a fun thrash song. (FYI: talk about NSFW when it comes to the voicemail!)

16. Masturbate - "I'm going to think about my mom!" http://www.cstone.net/~highway/exgf/16%20-%20Masturbate.mp3

17. I saw three forms - Okay this one is over 5 minutes long about a dude in Vietnam. Dave does long form something or another.

18. Calling Dr. Fong (+Lady died) - And something else kinda like that, 18 minutes. Yeah.

Next: Uh, the next GWAR album.

To Suzy. She was mostly a friend of one of my best friends; she was the girl my first year who sewed my ROTC tags onto my uniform. She told me great stories about visiting Russia in the early '90s. I always had a crush on her.

And earlier this week she died of a brain aneurysm.

WTF?

I found a four pack of this at Ace Beverage last week and figured what the heck - I've had good experiences with Green Flash, I like rye beers, and IPAs are nice in the summertime.

I had to ration myself because I wanted to drink them all right away.

I'm going to buy more so I can give better tasting notes, but man - this was a good beer.

I was thinking of going to visit my parents for Father's Day (also because they're moving from Amelia, southwest of Richmond, to New Kent, northeast of Richmond, at the end of the month). I'll have to see if I can swing by! Do you work over the weekends?

Violence Has Arrived, 2001.

I'm back! Sorry for the delay. Life has been...life.

So let's get out of the abyss. While Violence Has Arrived features an "intro" (which you'll see in later albums) it doesn't have an overarching story. According to Wikipedia, this was the last Metal Blade album, and there were a number of member changes during this era. The album art is done by an artist who worked with Games Workshop and their Warhammer games, which I think is cool. Given all that, just looking at the track list - I don't recognize most of the songs, and this will be the first time listening to it in a while. Though, as I said, it has one of my favorite songs on here...

1. Hell [intro] - However, unlike other intros, this is mostly instrumental. Whatevs.

2. Battle Lust - We're back in thrash metal, ahhhh. This is a nice flashback to Scumdogs of the Universe. Actually as I listen to this song - as distorted as it is on my computer due to some off settings I'm hunting down - I forgot how much I like it. I just didn't remember the name or the album.

3. Abyss of Woe - Another good song, another good flashback to listening to it - and not having any idea which album it was on. More of an epic song, kind of like Maggots or one. Man, now that I have the audio fixed a bit I forgot how much I like this album. There's a great story mid-song on here featuring huge battles with "posses of trolls" and...it's the epic, gory, kind of song that you listen to GWAR to hear.

4. Anti Anti-Christ - Despite a lack of overarching story to the album, several songs are kind of "story in one song" and while you might be consider the previous one the same, this is much more clearly that kind of story. There's a general anti-Catholicism specifically in a lot of GWAR's work, and this works with that, with GWAR wanting to feast on the Anti-Christ for dinner just...because.

5. The Apes of Wrath - Big, one of the more "epic" feel songs, not necessarily bad, just not one I focus on (though I like the spoken part of it around the 2/3rds mark).

6. Immortal Corrupter - Yes, it's misspelled. Also, the only video from this album, and the longest song on here. Kind of reminds me of some of the better Metallica songs in term of structure and feel. God, I forgot how much this song rocks. I am literally having to hold myself back from jumping out of my chair and flailing around my room as we hit the last third of this song.

7. Beauteous Rot - I love how the background vocals work with the main part here. Gives it a good, novel feel as it just thrashes along. Kind of feels a bit gothic.

8. Licksore - The shortest song on here (leaving out the intro). Oh I forgot this song! 101 seconds of thrash that reminds me if Hell-o!. Rock on guys. Rock this song when lifting at the gym, folks.

9. Bloody Mary - A dirty, filthy, rambling story song about a character named, well, Bloody Mary. I've never understood enough of the lyrics when listening to know anything more than it's about personal hygiene and rabies, and I haven't bothered to look up the lyrics.

10. Biledriver - So they built a "Biledriver" for their shows, which still goes around. "I want to murder everyone/in the entire world/death is the cycle/driven by your hate"..."I slay with a new efficiency/.../as I slaughter millions/with no reason". Ahhh, this is a GWAR song! "We are possibly too dumb to live" - my old .sig file!

11. The Wheel - Let us talk about torture. Thrash that slows down a bit so we can talk about putting people on the wheel. Uhhh...if you don't know what that is, don't look it up. Seriously, waterboarding might be torture, but the wheel - NO. NO NO NO NO NO.

12. The Song of Words - ONE OF MY ALL TIME FAVORITE GWAR SONGS EVER. It's mostly "talking" over a beat/music. There's claims it's inspired by "The Song of Roland" but whatevs. It's about GWAR battling the forces of the Black Pope, mostly represented by the celebrities (including OJ and Regis Philbin) and how they kill them. Also it's great how it gets into the characters of the various members of GWAR in a way...

13. Happy Death Day - Another underrated song (IMHO about me) -- to me, this is less the area of the first two albums and more like Ragnarok. But I like that album a lot, and I think this song is not only a very good GWAR song, but also an important one to them, kind of wrapping up the post-Carnival of Chaos/We Kill Everything era back into thrash/generally heavy-ass metal.

TL;DR: This is a good album, and I need to put it back in my rotation.

PS - Pledge to the GWARbar! 

The idea of cheese on apple pie makes me vaguely nauseated, though I had some sweet Norwegian cheese recently that was fantastic on freshly sliced Granny Smith apples.

Blue cheese, however, I find to be good for people (like me) trying to watch overall consumption of cheese - just a few sprinkles of it on a salad gives a whole bunch of taste. Just a wee, little, bit (not even an ounce).

Or paired after dinner with a good sour beer or a nice wine.

But most of the time in dishes it does seem to overwhelm, I think.

Seems like school is out.

The coroner's report was accidental heroin overdose. I plan on finishing this series, but needed some motivation. There'll be a new (at least) one tonight.

I haven't seen it anywhere around here yet.

Brouwerij Verhaeghe Duchesse De Bourgogne - While out at a Belgian restaurant here in RVA, Max's on Broad, I asked the server for their sourest sour and this is what he served.  Like I said, I'm kind of new to getting into sours, but I did recognize this one as a mainstay at Belgian places. I probably first tried it when Beck was in its infancy.  Really great cherry red sour, and actually went pretty well with the food (from what I can remember).  This is probably the bottle I'd crack open for wine friends who were interested in what a Belgian Sour tastes like.

A friend of mine's wife referred to that beer as "the hussy". If he got it out she'd say "Oh, you're going to spend some time with the hussy, aren't you?"

I'm a huge fan also of the Rodenbach Grand Cru.

I think you had a brilliant formula for the added water?  20%? 25%?

The Joy of Mixology, if I remember correctly, suggests 1/3rd of the amount of cocktail should be added as water so that the overall dilution is 25%. So a bottled negroni, for instance, would be equal parts gin, sweet vermouth, Campari, and water.

I find it interesting that the competitor who said "I'll open no matter what in Ballston" dropped out of the competition.

http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/blog/top-shelf/2014/06/victor-albisu-pulls-out-of-ballston-restaurant.html?ana=twt

Death in the Afternoon - absinthe, lemon, simple syrup, topped with champagne. The anise taste of the absinthe may not be to everybody's taste, but it's a great outdoors drink.

Any Pimm's Cup variant, really. You can bring out a variety of mixers and let folks make their own.

Also, consider bottling a cocktail.

Yeah, I knew they had cranked up their program over at William Jeffries, but I've still not been there...

To be honest, if I'm spending more than about $10 on a bottle of wine, I ain't doing it through a site like this. (He says, having just polished off a bottle of Chilean sauvignon blanc that cost like $6 at Glebe Market.)

I don't know anything about this - could you link to that quote?

"Victor Albisu Plans For A Mexican Street Food Restaurant"

Funny part - I googled Victor Albisu (who I was referring to) and Ballston, and it was a dcdiningguide.com link that got me to that one. )

Yeah. I got a sudden tear in my eye too.

And on a completely different note, I'm drinking to my favorite video game company right now - Gearbox. I'm about to put in more hours on top of the countless hours I've put in on Borderlands 1 and now 2, and I'm excited about the Pre-Sequel. It's not just completely addictive (and hilarious) game play, but also how they come out and try to make the game inclusive while avoiding tropes about female characters (I liked their response at being pointed out in Anita Sarkeesian's video series), including LGBT characters you might not expect (I play the commando, who is the stereotypical cocky mercenary type, and as you play the game you discover he's bisexual, for one) and handling differently abled folks with class.

Some random Chilean sauvignon blanc. I'm drinking a lot of sparkling and white wines this year, it seems...

Yeah, ditto.

But the prices for DC (using Marshall's zip) seem fair, and would mean I don't have to go buy stuff and lug it to his house versus having it delivered around the time I'm going over there...

To be honest, I'm super annoyed that they're going with the guy who said "I'm opening in Ballston no matter what" -- if that's the truth, Ballston already *HAS* him. Get someone in who might break out and make more of a destination!

Hey Dean - I get why you need to take this approach, really I do, especially after reading the latest two dozen or so posts on this thread. But taking reservations early and only early, well, while it does address the audience of potential customers who crave or demand the ability to get a reservation, means you have to eat dinner EARLY. While I do that on occasion, most of the time I prefer a later meal, say 7:30 to 9 as the start time.

As I think Don was saying - those are the times when no-shows are the most impactful. If your restaurant is half-full at 5:30, or 9:30, and there's a no-show - you're not turning people away at the door. But at 7-8? A lot of places will be packed no matter what, and having an open table sitting there getting unused for a no-show not only means you don't get the money for that table, but you're going to have some pissed off patrons going "why won't they seat us, I see an open table!".

Given a project I have going on at work, I've been going to the Grainger over near there regularly (a weird visit for an IT guy, but man, their customer service is *fantastic*). I think I know where I'm going to lunch tomorrow before I pick up my slip-on PVC connector!

(IT'S FOR THE ARMY DON'T HASSLE ME)

They have a new cocktail menu - with, like, real cocktail making going on and damn cheap prices (comparatively!):

http://scofflawsden.com/blog/2014/05/29/ragtime/

I liked the idea of this, but the execution (and I was annoyed by the way it was handled at Taste of Arlington) is leaving something to be desired.

(More good work from Jessica Sidman!)