Your Weekend Goulash #2: Preparing for Conventions and, In Our Spare Time, Eating

Random bits of things I wanted to share. Because I can. Coming to you post-weekend because the weekend was crazy. More on that shortly.

1) Sound engineer, philanthropist and friend to the animals Jon Boutelle has fired up 50 Days of DragonCon once more. Photos, info and scads of interviews with people associated with the Con. Recent entries have included a chat with: Grim, the video games track director and Dan Carroll, head of media relations. It is co-hosted by Leigh with guest appearances from many familiar voices and/or faces. Find it here. Enjoy.

2) In other news, Need Coffee will be appearing at Conjure Florida in Orlando. That’s coming up August 1-3. I know Rox of Spazhouse will be ending her North American tour here and also Leigh and Jon will be there. Others may be there as well. But also appearing: your amigo and mine, Dana Snyder; the only sensible choice if you’re going to have an American Doctor Who–Joel Hodgson; and also Mark Sheppard, from Doctor Who, Leverage and twenty-five other shows. I’ll post a schedule when I get ours stapled down. The con should be a nice burrito of chaos. Join us.

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3) The onslaught of “limited edition”/novelty flavors of potato chips increases unabated. Every once in a while, I run across one that’s actually good…usually just in time for it to disappear forever. So I tell you something about the Maple Bacon Kettle Potato Chips: they don’t taste like maple or bacon, but I don’t care. They’ve got a nice golden, smoky flavor that makes for a slightly sweet potato chip overall presentation…and having had a bag destroyed over the course of the weekend, I need to get another one very soon, lest it turn out that this week is the time that it dies and goes away. Recommended, even if you’re not a huge fan of the flavor…because it’s maple bacon in the same way that the movie World War Z was actually World War Z.

4) Speaking of limited edition things that are going away: the Ron Burgundy-inspired Ben & Jerry’s flavor Scotchy Scotch Scotch, which I’ve mentioned elsewhere, is starting to disappear completely. If you can find it, snag it. It’s their best flavor since Festivus and of course, because of that, it’s going the way of all flesh, sadly. Do I have to want a third Anchorman movie in order to get more? Because I will, Ben & Jerry’s. You bastards.

5) Dogfish Head makes insane flavors of beer. Just because they can. (Their Theobroma is supposed to be back…if you find it, get it.) Now apparently they have other food as well. In this case, a brat made with one of my favorite of their year-round offerings, Midas Touch. The beer is a cross between wine and mead…the result is just a nice, sweet bratwurst. You will not get drunk from eating it, but I recommend slicing it up, throwing it in a pan until browned and then throwing it on top of scrambled eggs. Is it the best brat ever? Nah, but hey, it’s diet friendly. We do what we can.

6) If you need some excellent mix tapes, Aquarium Drunkard has been posting some fantastic ones. There’s a two-parter of south Louisiana tracks from the 1950s and 60s (Part 2 is here). There’s also the badass Sidecar series, including this episode, which introduced me to Alton Ellis. Awesome. Find them all here.

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