Defining My Wheelhouse

Similar to how I defined my beer palate last year, I thought I would explore what is my "wheelhouse" in terms of media that I enjoy. As in, if there was a new movie or show coming out, just by knowing the genre will I be interested? This was partly inspired by the new whodunit movie Knives Out. Once I heard about it, I've avoiding even seeing a trailer as I know I'm going to see it and I don't want to know anything about it.

The first bucket is a big one with lots of components, but all sharing a common thread:

Mystery/Deception

• Murder Mystery/Whodunits: From live murder mysteries where I play a role to the aforementioned Knives Out to the ABC show Whodunit?, I love trying to solve a murder mystery or seeing the detective solve it. Even The Mole fits into this category.
• Detective Shows: Sherlock (with Benedict Cumberbatch) is top tier. But I liked Monk too.
• Heists: What I love about heists is not knowing exactly how they're going to do it and then watching them pull it off in an unexpected way--Inside Man and Ocean's 11 are great examples. 
• Escape Rooms: Big fan. Love being in charge of solving my way out of something. Also the same reason I like solving the puzzles in the Portal video game series.
• Magic: From Derren Brown to Penn & Teller or even the Now You See Me movies, I'm in on illusions
• Mystery thrillers: So here's the thing, Seven, The Prestige and Get Out are all good movies. But one of the ways you know something is in your wheelhouse, is when you like something that you know is bad like Liam Neeson's Unknown. See also Whodunit? (lol) Movies with twists are basically in this same category, although so many people like twists I don't know that it's a definable part of my wheelhouse.
• Mission Impossible franchise. These movies are very popular, in part because of the great action. But what I love just as much if not more than the action scenes, are the scenes to break in to the Kremlin or the Vatican or Langley, the mousetraps where they deceive the bad guys, or the masks. 

Video Games with Freedom or Stealth

• Freedom is one of the reasons we play games, to be in control. Despite this trend for games to be cinematic experiences, I'd still rather play a game that tells less of a story that allows me greater choice. An obvious example of freedom is the open-world sandbox games like Grand Theft Auto or Just Cause, but also I described this in the Tony Hawk series.
• Another component that I just love in video games is stealth. I first discovered my love for stealth through Metal Gear Solid and then leaned into the Assassin's Creed universe.
• You probably saw where this was going. But Hitman (2016-2018) has basically become my favorite game ever by combining freedom and stealth (not to mention deception disguises and even a heist) and doing everything right along the way.

Time Travel

• I love time travel stuff. I love interesting paradoxes and how changing one thing can change the future. Back to the Future, Looper, Deja Vu, even the bad Timecop show on ABC
• Groundhog Day, Edge of Tomorrow, Source Code, even 50 First Dates, it's fun to repeat the same day over again. 

Nolan/Fincher

• I'm not sure if this is a really a category that's in my wheelhouse as movies that make you think, or if they're just two of our top directors and they make good, popular movies. It's not just that they have a twist, it's the way movies like Fight Club, Inception, The Game, Memento, Seven, Interstellar, and others explore things you haven't thought of and send your mind reeling. 
• I loved Nolan's Batman Trilogy but stopped going to see Marvel movies. Eventually I realized what I loved about the Dark Knight is that it was a Nolan movie, not a superhero movie.

Offbeat/Awkward Comedy

• This one is harder to pin down. But I think it's fair to say that some of the stuff that hits my funny bone has a bit of awkwardness to it. When Letterman is running the Taco Bell drive-thru, Norm Macdonald, Jake and Amir, and Galifianakis. I Think You Should Leave sometimes went even farther than I wanted it do, but was great as well.

Smart, Layered Comedy

• The other thing that cracks me up is when jokes have multiple layers, often setup far in advance. I love a good callback.
• Arrested Development, 30 Rock, Community all are great examples of this
• In Seinfeld,  I love it when seemingly separate storylines merge in the final act

I think that's my wheelhouse. If you start listing every thing you've ever enjoyed it becomes more nebulous. There are other things that I can recognize as good and enjoy them a lot, without them being in my wheelhouse. Like I enjoy Goodfellas without being into mob/crime movies. I like Inglorious Basterds without being into war movies. And then there's things that seemingly everyone else likes that I'm not into at all, such as Game of Thrones or Marvel movies. And co-workers will be surprised and act like you just need to give it a chance. My reaction is, I've got enough stuff in my wheelhouse. No need to try to force something just because it's popular.

Defining my Candy Bar Palate

I know it's super lame to write about candy bars. But I've decided to embrace that. So much so that at one point I considered naming this post "Candy Bars I'm Grooving On" as that was the lamest thing I could think of. I also originally titled it "Candy barssss" which was a text that Brit sent me after I texted it was a rough day at work.

First off, there is a distinction between Halloween fun size candies and every day candy bars. While there is plenty of overlap, there's also some differences. For example, I made this list last year on Twitter, specifically ranking candies on Halloween:

That's a good list. But here's the thing. I'm not going to walk into a gas station and buy a KitKat. Literally never done that and never will. But on Halloween, it's fun to get Snickers, Twix, KitKat, Skittles, the classics. 

But on a random Tuesday in August, when I need a candy bar, what are my options?

Here's what I'm into lately (which makes it sound like I'm an audiophile talking about albums)

Top 4 In Some Order, Depending on Mood
Milky Way Midnight
Take 5
Mounds
Peanut Butter M&M's

Next 2 Up
Nutrageous
York

First, a quick note on Mounds/Almond Joy. Some people mistakenly believe that a Mounds is just an Almond Joy without the almond. Mounds has dark chocolate and Almond Joy has milk chocolate. The difference in chocolate is so great that even though I like the almond, Mounds is a top 4 for me and I don't even consider Almond Joy.

But back to my current favorite 6, here's what I've noticed. My favorites fall into two camps:
Dark Chocolate  (Milky Way Midnight, Mounds, York)
Peanut Butter/Milk Chocolate (Take Five, PB M&M's, Nutrageous)

If you don't have one of those things, I'm not buying you.

(If I'm at a high-end candy store, I would be excited to get some dark chocolate covered toffee or fudge. But the mass market toffee bars (Heath, Skor, etc) don't scratch that same itch.)

The last time I really posted about candy bars was back in 2006, and there are some great comments too.

My tastes haven't really changed that much. And I agree with Niraj that the seasonal Reeses's (eggs, pumpkins, trees, are where it's at). At any rate, this is still my primary plan:

Defining My Beer Palate

Now that I've rated and reviewed over 200 beers (not 1500 like some people) I thought it would be interesting to glean some trends.

Here are the Top 20 beers I've ever had, broken down by rating, but not in order otherwise. 

5 Stars

4.75 Stars

4.5 Stars

Here's the breakdown of these 20 beers by style:

Double IPA - 8

IPA - 6

Triple IPA - 2

Sour - 2

Pale Ale - 1

Golden Ale - 1

So this is actually pretty eye-opening. First of all, 18 of my top 20 is either some form of IPA or Sour. The only Pale Ale in my top 20 is a citrus-heavy one from Lagunitas. Despite Sierra Nevada being my gateway beer, turns out I don't actually enjoy Pale Ales. Also the Summer Love Golden Ale from Victory Brewing seems to be a one-off that was biased by the hot dog and chips and sunshine. 

Let's go deeper. 

I've tried 17 Double IPAs and 8 of them made my top 20. 

I've tried 53 IPAs and 6 made my top 20. 

I've tried 2 Triples both made my top 20. 

I've tried 3 Sours and 2 made my top 20. 

Sorted by efficiency that's:

Triple IPA: 100%

Sour: 66%

Double IPA: 47%

IPA: 11%

Then you go back and look at my very top ratings...

A Double and Sour got my only perfect scores, closely followed by a Double and a Triple. 

It becomes clear that (single) IPAs are not in my top three styles, and yet that's what I've tried the most.

So now I know. Go for a Double, Triple or Sour. I haven't tried enough Triples or Sours to really declare a precise ranking of those three styles.