Snow storm my ass.

Sooo if you haven't heard, there is something fishy going on over here on the East Coast. First we had that damn Hurricane Irene, now we're getting hit with a Noreaster in October. Like, what the fuck? & of course it has to snow when I have elaborate plans. But we'll get to that.

If you're awesome, you know that there was a new Hunter S. Thompson movie that just came out, The Rum Diary. If you don't know who Hunter S. Thompson is you need to stop reading this right now & Google him. My girlfriend & I are big fans of him & his work, so we made it a point to see the film the day it came out. (we only go out to the movies if it's a flick that we really want to see, otherwise we wait for it to come out on DVD) We decided to kick it old-school & hang out at the mall prior to the movie, just like when we were back in high school, except this time we thought it better to go get drunk at Ruby Tuesday. Now, right off the bat, I have beef with Ruby Tuesday. Every time I go there, they have Fat Tire on their "craft beer" menu, but they never actually have it at the bar. They need to just take that shit off. Luckily, they did have some Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA, which is always a tasty brew. As far as burgers are concerned, Ruby Tuesday doesn't do too bad of a job, it being a chain resturant & all. Now, I usually get the same thing when we do come here, the Smokehouse burger with bacon, cheddar cheese, onion straws, & barbecue sauce, but I felt like switching it up. I ordered the Boston Blue burger, with blue cheese, onion rings, & Boston barbecue sauce. Now I really couldn't tell you why I ordered this burger, because I don't even really like blue cheese, but I figured "What the hell," & gave it a shot. I have to tell you, it was fucking delicious. The Boston barbecue sauce was great too. (I don't know what makes it different from regular barbecue sauce, but I don't tend to discriminate when it comes to BBQ) It was a pleasantly surprising plate of awesome.

& in case you were wondering, the movie was pretty good too. The only complaint that we had was that it seemed like they tried to fit a lot of stuff within the 2 hour time span, so it was kind of all over the place, but we enjoyed it.

So we come to Saturday, the day of the snow storm. Now like I said earlier, we had kick-ass plans for the day that were squandered by the stupid snow. Now don't get me wrong, I love snow, but this was just plain silly. We were planning on going down to Blairstown, NJ where they shot the original Friday the 13th, then we were going to pick some apples & pumpkins, followed by checking out the Gem & Keystone Brewpub in Shawnee on Delaware, PA. But noooo, since we had winter storm warnings & everything, we decided driving South into the storm was probably not the best idea. Theeen we changed our plans & decided to check out Oktoberfest at the Bear Mountain Lodge, but of course it was outside, & I was not about standing outside in the snow drinking beer, as much as I do adore Oktoberfest.

Now you would think that after having to change our plans completely that we would take a hint & just stay home. Nope, not us. Me being the brat that I am, I couldn't be contented with just sitting home on my day off. (I get really antsy if I don't go out & eat a burger when I'm not at work) So I decide that it would be a good idea to drive up to Half Time in Poughkeepsie, even though it's about an hour away. (it's the best beer store EVER) Driving up there wasn't too bad, aside from the fact that it took about 2 hours, but we kind of blamed that on the people driving slow on the backroads. We did some damage at Half Time. Here's the line up:

Samuel Adams New World Tripel, Meantime IPA, Dogfish Head My Antonia, Laughing Dog Brewing's Dogzilla Black IPA, Ithaca Beer Company Cascazilla, Dogfish Head Midas Touch Golden Elixir, Lagunitas A Little Sumpin' Wild, Laguinitas Maximus, Lost Coast Brewery Alleycat Amber, Shipyard Brewing Company Old Thumper ESA, Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA, a growler of Smuttynose Pumpkin Ale, a growler of Three Heads Brewing's Skunk IPA, & a growler of Blue Point's Hoptical Illusion.

Not too shabby, huh? I was especially excited for the 120 Minute IPA. They were even limiting customer's to one bottle. Shit's rare! But yea, you would think that the trip up would send up right back home after the beer store, but nope, again, not us. We decide that we have to go to Poppy's in Beacon. I've heard great things about this place, & figured since we were already up in the area & hadn't eaten anything yet that we needed to go. We also drive a Subaru so that just means we can drive in any weather no matter what, right? So we get to Poppy's all fine & dandy. I ordered the Egg Head burger, with cheese, diced onions, & a fried egg. Now I don't know if it's just because I don't really eat diced onions, but decided I should attempt to eat them anyways, but I was no impressed with this burger. To me with the onions, it kind of made it taste like a meatball, but I think it might have just been because I'm used to eating my onions battered & fried, not raw. Their fries were amazing though. Most of the ingredients that they use are fresh & local, & you can certainly taste that in the fries. I've decided that I'm not really going to count this against Poppy's & that I have to make another trip out here, because I feel like it should have been delicious & circumstances we working against me. They also had a cute selection of NY beers, so I went with a Saratoga IPA from the Mendocino Brewing Company, which was nice & crisp.

Now you know we couldn't just get home to enjoy all our lovely beer right? Of course not. As we were driving home, this asshole driving on the NYS Thruway was acting a fool, so we tried to pass them, & ended up in a ditch on the side of the highway. You would think since we have a Subaru that this wouldn't be a problem? Nooope. We ended up stuck in that ditch for 3 hours, killing the battery, until we were pulled out & towed back home, to the tune of $170. I don't know what I did to karma to piss it off lately, but it was definitely messing with me that day. I should have just listened to all the reports telling people to stay home, but I am just way too stubborn for that & refuse to let the weather decide what I am going to do. (that & all the people on Twitter encouraging me to also ignore all the weather reports)

Getting stuck in a ditch definitely sucked, but everything ended up working out. We were able to make it home, injury free, which is really the blessing in all of this, because we were completely sideways on the Thruway, & in any other circumstance we would be fucking dead right now, so that God for that. I guess we'll have to see what happens to us on our next burger-venture, which is going down tomorrow. We're going to NYC to see my absolute favorite band CHIMAIRA. It will be my 16th time seeing them, & provides the perfect opportunity to re-visit Shake Shack. Just like Poppy's, I heard great things about Shake Shack but in my initial visit was not impressed. We'll see if my mind changes tomorrow.