This Mixology Monday’s theme was Limit One over at Kaiser Penguin, cocktails so large that to have two would be excess. On Saturday night causabon and I met to have a drink, and go over what we would post about. We were models of Shandian restraint. Now that the fog has lifted, lets have a look at the damage, shall we?

1. Ankle Breaker (double)

2 Oz Lemon Juice
1 Oz Simple Syrup
2 Oz Cherry Heering
2 Oz Cruzan 151 Proof Rum
-
Mix and pour over crushed ice in a double old fashioned glass. Garnish with a maraschino cherry.

causabon: I insisted that since we both had two ankles we needed to make this drink a double instead of just the standard recipe found in Intoxica. As a result it was fairly large and quite strong. Once the ice in the drink melted down enough to cut syrup like consistency of the Heering, though, the drink was pretty solid. Ian suggests letting it sit for a few minutes after pouring it into the glass, but it might even be worth just giving it a good solid shake. The cherry and lemon flavors combine in a complex way that I hadn’t expected and the Cruzan 151 (which I am actually very fond of – it’s significantly better than Bacardi 151) provides a nice spicy foundation. I would definitely drink this again, especially once it gets warm. I can’t help but think, though, that it would do well with a more interesting garnish than just a cherry – perhaps a pineapple wedge or a lime slice?

Ian: I’ve never seen this happen before, but I feel that once you finish mixing the drink, you should set it aside for at least two more minutes and give it one last stir before drinking. This may be due to the amount of ice we could fit in the glass when we made a double. In fact, it probably was. Still, it was a good drink once it diluted a bit. To me, the cherry comes on a little too strong even near the end. Could a quarter ounce less Heering be the answer to both the syrupy texture and cherry dominance? As you can see, our livers weren’t going to be able to handle a second try.

2. Zombie Punch (1934, Sippin’ Safari version)

3/4 Oz Lime Juice
1/2 Oz Don’s Mix*
1/2 Oz Falernum
1 1/2 Oz Appleton V/X
1 1/2 Oz Cruzan Dark Rum
1 Oz Lemon Hart 151 Demerara Rum
1 Dash Angostura
6 Drops Herbsaint
1 Tsp Grenadine

Blend for five seconds with 6 Oz crushed ice, pour into tall glass and fill with ice cubes. Garnish with a mint sprig.
*(2 Parts Grapefruit Juice to 1 Part Cinnamon Syrup)

causabon: This was the winner of the evening. It is almost impossible to distinguish any of the ingredients in the drink they merge so completely into a new flavor. It also manages to change flavor throughout the drinking (which is nice given its size). It’s hard to say much more about this drink than that it is magnificent.

Ian: causabon is right. There is little that can be said about this drink that has not been said already. It’s is a classic for a reason. My girlfriend hates cinnamon, though I still cannot understand why. She loved this drink, despite the cinnamon. Its quality simply cannot be ignored.

3. Zombie (1956, Sippin’ Safari version)

3/4 Oz Lime Juice
1/2 Oz Grapefruit Juice
1 1/2 Oz Pineapple Juice
1/4 Oz Falernum
1 1/4 Oz Cruzan Dark Rum
1 Oz Myer’s Dark Rum
1 Oz Lemon Hart 151 Demerara Rum
3/4 Oz Maraschino
1/4 Tsp Grenadine
2 Dashes Angostura Bitters
6 Drops Herbsaint

Blend for five seconds with 6 Oz crushed ice, pour into tall glass and fill with ice cubes. Garnish with a mint sprig.

causabon: At the time I wasn’t sure if I preferred this version to the above one or not. The Maraschino makes it richer and smoother, though less spicy than the other one. Looking back on both of them I think I prefer the other version though – it’s just more exciting in general.

Ian: Again I agree with causabon. While the later version is excellent, the earlier one is scrappier. It’s ready to get in there and mix it up, cause a little havoc, break a few hearts. This version is almost too sophisticated. I loved them both, but the first one had the edge of danger.

The notes get sketchy at that point in the evening. Part two will reveal what further abuses were heaped on our poor livers.

I intended to go camping this weekend, but the forecast of -50° F windchill in Voyageurs National Park dissuaded me. Instead, I am frying up sourdough flapjacks and reading Robert Service poems in an attempt to conjure the spirit of the frozen north in the land of radiators and central heating. People who camp in the dead of winter fall into two broad categories: those who do it for pleasure and those that wish to experience nature red in tooth and claw. I fall into the comfort-seekers, but sometimes I wish I had a hardier soul.

My companions in this trip-that-never-happened certainly were made of stouter stuff. I saw a gleam appear in some of their eyes as the forecast got cold. Others, I think, were merely fool-hardy. Nonetheless, it fell to me to argue that 0° sleeping bags and three season tents (or even quiznees) would not withstand a blizzard from the North. “Remember the fellowship on Mt. Caradhas,” I argued. “Better than the mines of Moria,” they returned. In the end, the most I could do was persuade them to stay close enough to the Twin Cities to bail if conditions became too ferocious. Will they fly to civilization tonight, frostbitten and miserable, or will they return tomorrow with daring tales, like Shackleton? I should have gone with them.

You can read it right here.

She’s arguing that the idea of increased food stamp allowances wouldn’t be a useful economic stimulus in the way a tax rebate would.  There are five reasons that she gives, and the first is

The poor don’t need more food. Obesity is a problem for the poor in America; except for people who are too screwed up to get food stamps (because they don’t have an address), food insufficiency is not.

….

The next four are, roughly, that food stamps can only be spent on food not on other things, that if the only change is to increase eligibility people won’t find out in time for it to have much effect*, that the money will be spent on things that already exist and not go towards increased manufacturing (one would assume that this is the point of a short term stimulus, but ….), and that, finally, the government has already done an awful lot of interference in the food market (via subsidies, etc.) and it would be better if they didn’t get more involved.

So, at this point it should be clear that the title above there is obvious sarcasm.   It may not be worth saying, but all of these are obviously, stupidly wrong.
She defends her suggestion in the next post by arguing that  people who point out that poor people are in fact economically constrained in what they can and can’t afford to eat and hence probably could use some extra money are forgetting the first point she made – they’re already eating too much food. She makes four points here – (1)if they cut back they could afford the healthier fruits and vegetables which often aren’t actually available in poor neighborhoods.  She also argues (2) that the prices of high quality foods (fruits and vegetables, etc.) aren’t going up, incomes of poor people aren’t going down, but the poor are getting fatter (so presumably it’s personal choice making the difference and not situational factors or poverty).  Also (3) the causality is backwards here: it isn’t that poverty is causing people to become fat, but that being fat makes you poor**.  And finally (4) that all this relies on the notion that your eating habits have something to do with your weight – the poor are probably just naturally fat, that’s all.***

There’s one final post on the issue, which I’m not going to discuss in too much depth except to excerpt this sentence:

But food stamp programs are stupid at the best of times, and in a population that has clearly reached and surpassed caloric sufficiency, they are ludicrous.

She also makes a very interesting argument right at the end, namely, that the food stamps are either entirely or not entirely fungible.  In the first case every extra dollar of food stamps frees up a dollar that the person would previously have spent on food to spend on something else, in which case it is good economic policy.  Or, that they are not entirely fungible in which case they will result in more money being spent on food (which presumably is less good as far as the stimulus goes?  it is hard to tell what the argument is here specifically – perhaps they are just both bad social policy because they’re encouraging fat people to eat more).  The fact that “food” is not a single product (that is, that one might simply buy better or at least more expensive food) is ignored, as is, somewhat mysteriously, the fact that buying food actually still counts, economically, as buying something.

Note to someone who knows who they are: this is someone you take seriously arguing this.  Those links up there?  I found them before I had my coffee, using an internet connection that only works when I put my computer up on the window sill (at eye height) and get lucky.  Someone who can, you know, sit down and use the computer at the same time has no excuse here.  They are just an idiot.

*Which would seem like good reason to assume that it won’t just be increased eligibility but also increased funds.  Also even if it is only increased eligibility (which, by the way, since food stamps are given out on a sliding scale relative to income would be nearly impossible to do without, well, increasing funds given to specific people anyway) it would still work faster than giving everyone a tax rebate on their recent earnings which is, bear in mind, the other position here.

**I’m not going to give you links on that one, you’ll have to figure out why it’s ridiculous on your own.
***Here, too.

After several years of making fun of them, I am a little sheepish about the fact that I am starting to come around to what the polyamory people have always espoused, though, I think, for different reasons.

Our society is losing connection between people, and has been for a long time. I don’t mean this new ‘interconnectivity’ bullshit given to us by texting and i.m. I mean a legitimate emotional connection between individuals. I think an increase in sex and non-possessive relationships would help that, but we would have to change our motivations and the way we view sex.

Too often in our society sex is something we have in the presence of a partner, not really with a partner. This is because we often hook up because we want the sex, not the person. I’m not a prude preaching abstinence, I’m merely saying that sex should be a channel through which two (or more) people learn and love* each other, even if that connection will only last the day.

* Not Love, the Romantic term. I mean a deep appreciation for and cherishing of a person. In this context, love does not include any duty, responsibility, or expectation beyond simple honesty.

Note: Prostitution is still fine. If you just need to get off, then by all means, hire a hooker. Don’t pick up a drunken sorority girl. The hooker will be better anyway, and probably smarter.

Let me be clear: sex does not equal love; I know this. But it can be a way for people to learn and appreciate each other, if everyone goes honestly. Sex and emotional investment with multiple people (particularly if concurrent) creates a network that I think many or most americans (at least) are lacking. If we could give up jealousy and possessiveness, such a network should not have to interfere with or prevent long standing, committed relationships such as marriages.

Rarely in this society does the term ‘friends’ include a sexual relationship, and I think that his is a failing of our social understanding. Speaking as someone who’s done it, sex can be a very functional addition to a friendship. the reason it doesn’t work ore often is that people can’t figure out how to treasure that connection without turning into something bigger in their heads, or thinking that it must exist to the exclusion of a more serious romantic relationship. It can and should be an easy, casual, enjoyable, reaffirming act, but it seems to be too complicated (or perhaps too simple) for Americans to figure out.

We already know that most Americans are not sexually satisfied by a single partner. The astronomical rate of extramarital relations shows this, but the problem is that our society had decreed that a relationship must be monogamous. Having studied monogamy among mammals, I can say that it barely exists in the animal kingdom. Why fight it? Wouldn’t if be nice to enjoy sex with multiple partners without having to lie about it, or risk losing a marriage? Eliminate jealousy, remove the concept of possession from sex, and we would be free to connect ourselves much more thoroughly within our social networks.

This article at health.com on where significant concentrations of bacteria can be found starts out on an almost reasonable footing, talking about kitchen sinks (they recommend bleaching them twice a week) and airplane bathrooms. The recommend, by the way, putting the lid down before flushing (a recommendation I’ve heard before*, and cheerfully ignored that time as well). But it doesn’t take long before the article goes a little off the deep end… It’s not that it didn’t start out a little… exaggerated: the comment about the toilet plumes was a little overstated.

The volcanic flush of the commode tends to spew particles into the air, coating the floor and walls with, well, whatever had been swirling around in there.

Now, there is a notable spraying effect, but ‘volcanic flush’ seems overstated to me, at the least. It takes till the fourth entry (public drinking fountains at schools) to start getting a little crazy with the recommendations:

Send your child to school with plenty of her own beverages. Teach her to wash her hands, especially before and after lunch, going to the bathroom, or using the computer. Send hand sanitizer to every school teacher and give extras to your child. And when it’s your turn to squeeze into that little desk for Open House? Swab it off with an antibacterial wipe…

Still, this isn’t too far beyond the pale. I mean, there’s something a little odd about sending hand sanitizer to all of your children’s school teachers (are there any teachers reading? would you, like I would, take this to be a sign of insanity and promptly throw the stuff away?). Also mentioned as a valuable use for disinfecting cleaning agents are: the handles of shopping carts at supermarkets (or just buy your own handle cover to bring with you); ATM keys, as well as paper money in general (always clean your hands with a sanitizing agent after touching money); and anything you might touch in a hotel room (not just bedspreads, for example, but also door handles and light switches).

There are plenty of other useful hints for keeping safe that should also be mentioned, briefly, such as sunny days being safer for taking children to playgrounds (ultraviolet radiation kills bacteria), cleaning keyboards and office spaces daily with disinfecting wipes, and making sure to disinfect your bathtub at least once a week (and after anyone with some sort of infection uses it) and then dry it carefully with a clean towel.  (A recent study found that 26 percent of bathtubs have staphylococcus bacteria living in them.  The article fails to mention what percent of human beings have staphylococcus bacteria living all over them.)

Honestly, aside from more or less just listing these recommendations I’m not sure what more to say. They are self-mocking. Still, I just know that there’s a sizable number of people out there taking this sort of thing seriously and that’s kind of unnerving.

—

*As an interesting side note, the Professor Gerba mentioned in this article apparently loves his work enough that his son’s middle name is “Escherichia”.

It’s been a while since I had a useful forum for distributing some of the things I find on the internet in any given day, so some of these are fairly old. That said, I will start with the joys of youtube, and proceed on from there…

In no particular order ….

Orson Welles tells us why we should be drinking Paul Masson champagne

The Count sings a song for us (I wonder if muppets are made of futurotic materials…)

Another song, though not from Sesame Street this time (and check the bar at the side for more along these lines).

Two music videos, though you might want to watch these in more private settings. No one must know your secret. They wouldn’t understand. Well, Ian would, but that’s not really helpful.

This man is really tough – I could never take on that many opponents and do as well.

This video is from a while back, but it’s still worth linking to it since I must have missed one or two people the first time I found it. Make sure to watch at least through half of it for the real beauty of the thing.

And finally, also from a while back, this should bring back fond memories of summer, and picnics, and potato salad, and horrible alien monsters.

Now that those are over with, here are some non-video selections -

I’m not certain precisely what this is, but there’s something more than a little unnerving about this series of photos. (Are they having orgasms? I hope so. Any other explanation would only be worse.)

This is a little depressing. Depressing and arousing. Let’s all forget I said that.

I think there’s something a little adorable about this, but I suppose it’s worth adding a warning – others have disagreed.

This is just impressive from a technical standpoint. (I would also suggest checking out a few of the other downloads they have.)

This is kind of neat, though how they avoided titling it “Robots control cockroach army” I will never know. It’s probably best not to panic at the thought – if it isn’t too late already there’s nothing you can do anyway.

When I was trying to decide on a password for my WordPress account, I noticed the helpful “password meter” which gauges the strength of your password of choice, both with a little colored bar that fills up incrementally, and an assessment of your current password’s merits. My default password received a “Bad”.
Really? Sure, it’s only six characters, but nobody’s ever guessed it (Yes, my name is six letters, but I’ll bet you that’s usually pretty close to the top of the list). The phishers on myspace have yet to successfully convert me into an automated Webcam advertisement or Macy’s gift card dispenser.
But apparently my proposed password is as hard to guess as “12345″, which also earns a “Bad”.

So I decided, lead by WordPress Password Consultancy, to choose a password more suitable to their liking.

Let’s go back to the number example. What if my password was one thing over and over again, the theory being the same as rock/paper/scissors.
Let’s say we play a game in which I only have to beat you ONCE in order to win. Say I throw paper three times in a row. Then again. And again. Eventually you are going to keep throwing scissors, right? (or rather, you have every time so far, right? Because I only need one to beat you. Let’s say two, to give you a sporting chance) The probability hasn’t changed at all. In theory, each throw should be 50/50. But I keep throwing paper, and with each throw, a nagging voice grows in the back of your head: THIS will be the time he throws rock.

Back to passwords. What if I make my password nothing but a’s? How long before WordPress considers my opponent psyched out?

At 10 a’s, it’s still “Bad.”
same at 14.
15 a’s and it’s upgraded to “Good”.
at 16, back to “Bad” again.
at 17, “Good.”
34 a’s earns you a “Strong,” the highest rating for a password.

For comparison, is it the same if you use numbers?
The breakdown:
0-3: Too Short.
4-10: Bad
11-26: Good
27: Strong.
28: Good.
29 and up: Strong.

By this point, you should be starting to get some sense of how seriously I take procrastination.

So. Other passwords and the rating they received.

0 (too short)
Sascha (bad)
PopularMichaelJacksonAlbum (strong)

…okay. This gives me a new goal. I want to enter my password in the form of a simple puzzle and have the Password Strength Meter answer it correctly. Nothing complicated. This is the WordPress Password Consultant, not Deep Blue. For instance, for “PopularMichaelJacksonAlbum,” I was looking for “Bad”, obviously. Although I would also have accepted “Thriller.”

I decided the password had to be a song or movie title. Here are some passwords I tried, all with a _ where the missing word should be (e.g. “_boys”). I’ve replaced the _ below with the consultant’s response in parentheses.

(good)boys
the(strong)shepherd
(good)tothebone
doctorfeel(strong)
colorme(good)
super(good)
(good)lands
the(bad)the(good)andthe(strong) (wow, 0 for 3)
small deviation:
(bad)bad
strong(good)

I wasn’t having much luck. I’m sure the two of you reading this (Colin and myself) can think of plenty of word_ combinations that would give the desired result. But I was having a hell of a time.

Anyway, I found one. I’m not going to tell you what it is. Instead, I’m going to give you a hint, and you figure it out. First one to does gets to hack into my account and throw up a new Iceland Spar post under my name about anything he/she wants, informing us all that our hi-tech security system has been breached.
Then I’ll probably change my password.

The password is the title of the song with an underscore replacing “bad,” “good,” or “strong”. Example above.

So, the hint. And don’t google it, obviously. That’s lame.

Contemporary band. The song in question contains the lyric, “I’ve seen her naked twice! I’ve seen her naked…TWICE!!”

Happy Hacking.
Sascha (bad)