March 2011 Archives

my fashion is not a statement, it's a demand. and this week, the climate surrendered to my demands. shorts and flip flops don't seem so impractical now, do they?

I was visiting my parents' house when Justin Bieber came in for a visit. It turns out he's a great guy, funny, very smart, down to earth. We played some video games, had a bunch of laughs, and then, when he was about to leave, I picked up my parents' land line so he could call dopealope for a serenade.

Unfortunately, my mom refused with great vehemence, saying that she didn't want to pay the long distance charges that using the land line would incur, and also refused my offer to reimburse. Since the cell phone wouldn't do justice to the glorious vocal talents of the bieb, dopealope didn't get his performance, and that was the end of that.

remember when i said the car was fixed? it's not, lights are back and to the shop it goes. the dealer, that is. bleh.

things are really shaping up.

my kindle arrived the other day, and while i'm still getting used to it (the "pages" are much shorter than i'm used to with dead trees, so there's lots more "page turning" than in the past), i think i'm going to like it, and it will really be a great addition to...

my summer vacation, which is finally beginning to firm up. if all goes well, we'll get our plane tickets today and hotels shortly thereafter. and then, maybe i'll tell you where i'm going ;)

my electronics generally are on the fritz, specifically, the lavry and the ps3. this depresses me to no end, as my world descends into gubbish, but at the same time, at least i'm wasting less time on demon's souls.

i've finally gotten past the introductory part of "Imbibe!" and have arrived at the recipes, so that'll give me plenty to do in the coming weeks, although i'll be busy...

learning a new language. that's going well too, i suppose. tonight i can ask hops what she'd like to drink, and presumably, once i've learned how to specify what i want to drink, i'll have mastered the drink. no word yet on which language it is, har har, i'll leave you in suspense until i've got tickets in hand -- i'm a bit superstitious, it seems.

the car went to the shop on monday, again. the shop is now the car's home-away-from-home. some dash lights came on, and i got a pretty bogus sounding explanation for why, but it didn't cost me anything, as opposed to the dealer where i pay $150 for the privilege of being bullshitted. i guess if the lights come back on i'll play hte odds and fork over the cash to see if at least i get a different line of bs from the dealer. still drives fine.

there's the quickie update, for what it's worth.

was so bad (i declared it the worst movie i've ever seen, though that may not be true, it's definitely one of the worst five, and i can't think of the other four) that i am putting an indefinite hold on my plan to soldier through his entire cinema portfolio.

i want to watch that youtube about garnishes, which i posted earlier, in its entirety, and with sound.

(un?)fortunately, i'm already listening to "Death of Rexor, Part 2", and that cannot be interrupted.

well, three, actually, if you count my haircut. now that i think of it, the barber really should have just apologized and offered a buzz. but on to the others...

first up, spu and i visited a reputable tobacco shop, one that we'd both been to many times before, where i've previously bought several tins of pipe tobacco and a couple of cigars. they have a walk-in humidor the size of a large closet, and we walk-ined to it to find... a complete disaster. boxes of cigars ruined, including the prominent $55-a-stick box of Padrons. Every single cigar in the humidor felt like a fat chopstick, and looked the same. The two hygrometers in place both read... 55%. For those of you who don't know, cigars should be kept between 65% and 70% relative humidity, and some would argue that even 65% is too low.

There was no indication that the shopkeep would have told us the cigars were ruined, and in fact, there was no sign that he even realized that his entire stock was dried out. We were both flabbergasted by the display, and marveled that we were even allowed in to witness the disgrace. Cigars can supposedly be re-hydrated, but it takes a lot of time and even then, something supposedly is lost in the process. The $55 Padrons were surely beyond repair. I've had cigars that were obviously stored suboptimally, but this took the cake. While I may return for tinned tobacco (and even that, unlikely), we won't be going there again for cigars.

The second disgrace (or third, if you count my haircut, which occurred immediately after the cigar shop incident) befell us later that night, whilst obtaining an after-dinner cocktail. i maintain (and even more so now) that there is simply no place in my town to find a decent cocktail, my own residence excepted, of course. one can find a good (or even excellent) single malt, or a dram of Old Potrero (that, alas, only outside my residence), and perhaps a workable Shirley Temple, but god help you if you order a gimlet or, in the case of my story, a Blood And Sand.

The Blood And Sand is a very easy cocktail to make, but as I've found out while practicing it over the last two weeks, it's not an easy cocktail to make well. In fact, I'd made two versions of it the night prior, one of which was the first good B+S I've managed, the other of which wasn't bad. Since this bartender had listed this as one of their specialties, I had above-average (but still quite skeptical) hopes that I'd get a good one that would inspire more success in my own efforts. The Blood And Sand cocktail recipe is simple:

Equal parts (usually 3/4 ounce, aka 1/2 jigger):
scotch
Cherry Heering (a viscous and sweet cherry liqueur)
fresh orange juice
sweet vermouth

As you can see, only one ingredient is precisely specified, the Cherry Heering. All the rest are at the bartender's discretion: they may choose any of thousands of different scotches, any of dozens of variety of orange, or any of dozens of brands of vermouth. The possibilities are near infinite. This bartender used Noilly Prat vermouth, a pedestrian but not bad choice, freshly squeezed the orange juice, the proper Cherry Heering (I wouldn't have ordered it had I not already seen the bottle on her shelf), and dosed out some bottom-shelf scotch which I did not observe, but which I will guess to be something like J&B or, well, I really don't know, since I'm not all that familiar with bottom-shelf scotch.

Now we come to the garnish. My hopes were raised when she pulled out a lighter. Dale DeGroff, the King of Coctails, from whose book I got my recipe for this cocktail, frequently uses a flamed orange peel as a garnish. I won't claim that I can taste the difference between flamed orange peel oils and unflamed, but part of the point of the garnish (of all garnish, indeed) is the spectacle and flair, not just the flavor.

So. The bartender pulled a pre-cut orange peel from under the counter (wat), then proceeded to char the pith-side of the peel until it was thoroughly blackened (wat!), and finally, squeezed it over a flame, at which point it produced a near-imperceptible pyrotechnics display (wat!!). And then, as if this were not enough, the disgrace: she made excuses. She showed us an orange (and who knows its relation to the one she used, since the peel she used came from sources unknown to me) and complained that it had "small pores" and that prevented oil from escaping. She offered no explanation whatever for her barbecuing of the underside of the peel, nor did she explore the possibility that the poor performance of her orange peel was due to a lack of freshness.

And all this after she'd already "joked" that I'd picked a "hard" cocktail to make. Yeah, I guess it's harder than a Bacardi and Coke, but not by much.

If I were a professional bartender, or a professional anything, for that matter, if I couldn't do something, it wouldn't be on my list of things I could do (menu, in this case, humidor in the first case). If the drink didn't come out right, and that includes the garnish, then offer to remake it, or something, but don't stand there and blame your ingredients (wat!!!!) when clearly the problem is your wack-ass (technical term) technique and your failure to use fresh ingredients.

In the end, the drink was stunningly flavorless. I say stunningly because while orange juice, vermouth, and even scotch (as it asymptotically approaches vodka, and i assume this scotch was pretty close to vodka) can be pretty flavorless, Cherry Heering cannot ever hope to lack flavor, and I saw with my own eyes as she poured that into the cocktail. Somehow, she managed the vampiric feat of removing flavor from a cocktail, which is, in fact, an impressive skill, just not an appropriate one.

Sigh. I'll probably make some Blood And Sands tonight (tip: the better the scotch, the better the drink. I use a bottle of pricey Bruichladdich that we just don't like neat. Yeah, we "shouldn't" use such a high quality single malt for a cocktail, but it's otherwise just gathering dust and taking up space, so why the hell not? the cherry heering seems to really bring out the chocolate in the scotch, and the Bruichladdich makes the B+S delectable, so it's win-win), and you can bet that even though I'm not a professional bartender, if my orange peels don't flame, I won't make up some bullshit about how some asshole down in Florida don't know how to grow a proper orange.

It's Frobuary 2, YOMHC 0x6f!

I was near a barber with a spare hour and a desperate need for a haircut, so i took a gamble... and lost. this may just be the worst haircut i've ever had, whether paid for or not.

i'm trying to grow it out a bit so i didn't go for the buzz, which probably this guy could have pulled off, but certainly he failed to deliver whatever it was he was trying to do. ah well, in two more weeks i'll be back to shaggy.

you had to reveal on air that you don't "get" pineapple on pizza, huh?

well that's it, you're dead to me.

a fun game to play is to watch "legion" and for every scene, name the movie which "legion" has most ripped off at that moment.

for example, ending: The Terminator.

casting of Gabriel: The Prophecy.

rest of the plot: The Prophecy + Demon Knight

etc.

watching "no escape", a really lame ray liotta movie.

but it does have the greatest moment in cinema ever: a sentry yawns and then is shot through the mouth with a flaming crossbow bolt.

has to be watched multiple times, and alas, the scene is not on the youtubes. you'll just have to rent it.

breakfast cereal is much better with non-expired milk.

today's ride on sawyer camp featured rather slick roads. i was lost in thought and taking a corner in a high gear when i went into a slide out of the corner. i thought, "oh crap, here i go", and then decided i'd rather not go down, all things considered. so i steered out of the skid, or shifted my weight, or did something -- i'm really not sure what, the important point is that my nervous system did know what, and did the right thing.

but then i found myself heading straight into a ditch, still with a mushy back wheel. "oh crap, here i go", i thought again, and then saw that an oncoming pedestrian was watching the whole affair. i decided i'd rather not be embarrassed in front of a bystander (i prefer my humiliation with a side of solitude, thank you very much), and besides, the ditch featured a vertical post which posed no structural danger to my person, it being a thin post, but which presented a severe splinter hazard that, again, all things considered, i would much rather avoid.

so again i did something, which i think involved standing and heaving against the pedals (no small feat since now i was moving very slowly, if at all, in a very high gear), shifting my weight, and yanking the front wheel in a direction that was agreeable with the prevailing physics.

i righted myself, managed to entangle only one wheel of my road bike in the ditch, avoided the dishonor of splinters, and said to the somewhat shocked pedestrian, as i picked up speed and rode past her, "well, that was exciting, wasn't it?"

during my lengthy morning commute, i listened to a bit of a show discussing women in combat units in the US army and marines. reasonable points were made, mostly to the effect of, "create a test, and anyone who passes the test, no matter their gender, is fit to serve in combat." this may be a great oversimplification, but it's not the most egregious thing that happened on the show.

no, that honor goes to a caller who phoned in to say that she doesn't believe women should serve in combat units because she joined the reserves to get an education, see the world, and challenge herself -- not to engage in combat.

i have a lot of sympathy for a lot of people, but i've never had a lot of sympathy for people who join any branch of the military are are shocked and stunned to find themselves in a combat zone.

but i realized then that the world is not so simple. i suppose it is possible that people more susceptible to advertising than I may honestly believe the commercials that show, frequently enough, exactly the scenario the caller described: join the [ military branch ], see the world, educate yourself, become a leader! no mention in these commercials of going to war and being maimed.

i could give the benefit of the doubt to such people, that the advertising is so deceptive and their choices otherwise so limited by poverty, poor education, and, for example, already living in a military town. but at some point (presumably before enlisting), any person with two brain cells to rub together has to understand that aside from all the learning, traveling, partying, and being all that you can be, the only purpose of any military is to fight wars. In our culture, i believe it is impossible to reach the age of enlistment without being exposed to this fact, either through a history book or a bruckheimer movie.

i am grateful to this caller for giving me the opportunity to examine one of my long held beliefs. i admit that there are a whole lot of people in the US and elsewhere who have few if any options for personal betterment besides joining their local militia. and i acknowledge that advertising is a powerful force wielded by merciless predators upon a populace that is often too poorly educated to realize they are being duped.

but i cannot accept the surprise of any enlistee upon finding themselves in a war zone. when you sign your life away, it is someone else's to use, and that someone else isn't going to put themselves on the front lines.

but the idea of freezing is less attractive.