Monday, June 05, 2006

A prost to thee

Knowing that tomorrow is just going to be crazy, might as well give the men a few rules that they ALL need to know about drinking.

#22 is my life......#29...sadly WAS a part of my life.


1) There is no such thing as a chocolate martini.
2) There is no shame in club soda and cranberry juice.
3) Visiting the pub will be cheaper in the long run if you tipthe bartender regularly and more generously than is necessary.
4) Never order a frozen drink in a place that serves pickled eggs.
5) Actually, never order a frozen drink.
6) It's also not a bad idea to eschew the pickled pigs' feet, although their presenceis fairly strong evidence that you've accidentally stumbled upon a real tavern.
7) For the sake of the children, leave the pistol at home.
8) Grappa is to lighter fluid as ouzo is to lighter fluid.
9) Garnish matters.
10) Despite a high ratio of female clientele, an insouciant way with fried mozzarella,and their prevalence in resort towns, establishments where a waitress pours shotsinto your mouth from a bottle she holsters in a bandolier are fraught with peril.
11) When throwing a party, break the seals on all liquor bottles, lestguests should hesitate to open them and come to doubt your hospitality.
12) Better yet: Hire a bartender.
13) At the holiday office party, consume one drink less than your boss.
14) Adopt a favorite cocktail on a seasonal basis.
15) That sangria means "bloodletting" is more a cautionary note than a simple fact.
16) Drinks that give you bad breath: beer, anything sweet, anything with milk.
17) Drinks that give you good breath: gin and tonic, gimlet, vodka and cranberry,anything with citrus.
18) Instead of ordering a shot of After Shock to cap off the evening, one could justwalk calmly into the street, lie down, and wait.
19) Hungarian proverb: If three men tell you that your are drunk, lie down.
20) Every man should know how to make at least one drink from a foreigncountry, preferably one taught to him by a local female with whom he has hada complicated, unresolved, and quite possibly dangerous dalliance.
21) Citrus cocktails benefit greatly from rubbing lemon peel around the rim of theglass.
22) Jack Daniel's. Rocks.
23) Fresh orange juice. Fresh lemon juice. Fresh lime juice.
24) On those chrome, hourglass-shaped bar measuring cups, the bigside is the jigger. The little side is the pony. Never use the pony.
25) If you must: single-malt Scotch in a brandy snifter with a splash of water.
26) Avoid bars that use plastic cups, bars whose bathrooms consist solely of atrough-style urinal, bars with chicken wire protecting the band, bars where PatrickSwayze is the bouncer.
27) There is rarely any genuine need to shout "Skal!" "Na zdorovye!""Slainte!" "Bottoms up!" or "Down the hatch!"
28) No one but the bouncer cares how tough you are, and healready knows you're not that tough.
29) Drinking is not a competitive sport.
30) Never drink in a place that calls itself an eatery.
31) There is no upside to karaoke.
32) There is an ever-so-slight upside to a wet-T-shirtcontest, as long as you're not in it.
33) It is not necessary to request premium liquor for a mixeddrink in which you cannot taste it, such as a gimlet or sour.
34) On the other hand, ascertain exactly how nonpremium the "well"liquor is before you opt against the good stuff.
35) Sitting at the bar works only for two people. Three or more requires a table.
36) Never utter the words I and love and you if you've had more than three drinks.
37) If you're a lightweight, make that one drink.
38) If a bartender makes you flail your arms or beg for service, well, obviously, leave.
39) Don't call the bartender Barkeep, Chief, Buddy, or Ace, unless hisactual name, in fact, is Barkeep, Chief, Buddy, or Ace.
40) Even if you have ascertained your bartender's name, behaving overlyfamiliar with him will be seen as a pathetic gambit for free drinks or, worse,proof that you have nobody to go to for affection other than a random service-industryprofessional who does not, in fact, know you and just wants your money.
41) The one foolproof hangover cure: Don't get drunk.
42) Once you've fallen off a stool, there is little you can say tothe bartender that will change his mind about asking you to leave.
43) There is nothing cheeky and clever you can say to a female bartenderthat she hasn't already heard from some other schmuck before you.
44) Don't eat the worm.
45) If you don't smoke and you're in a bar, don't complain about other peoplewho happen to be smoking, because, virtuous friend, you are in a bar.
46) Instead of trying to remember whether it's "beer before liquor" orthe other way around, just be an adult and stick to one or the other.
47) Acceptable drinks for men: beer, wine, whiskey, cocktails that are neithersweet nor made with dairy or fruit other than lime or lemon or orange.
48) Acceptable drinks for women: whatever they want, except a certain few.
49) A certain few: the grasshopper, the Long Island iced tea, the pinklady, and any variety of spritzer.
50) Also unacceptable: drinks whose names mimic critical medicalconditions or copulative acts and their secretions.
51) And while we're on the subject, drinks that are named aftersupposedly cute body parts, like navels, which are actually disgustingrepositories for sebaceous grime: No.
52) All of that said, never question a woman's drink choice.
53) If you're the first in the group to arrive and you start a tab onyour card, you deserve exactly what's coming to you.
54) Unless you are lounging on the Promenade Deck, do not drink from a fruit.
55) Almost never have more than three cocktails.
56) Never order a cocktail with more than four ingredients.
57) If it doesn't have vermouth, it's not a Martini. If what you reallywant is iced gin (or vodka) straight up, order it that way.
58) Grain alcohol and purple Kool-Aid do not a punch make.
59) Pick up your drinks before moving the table.
60) Despite its name, a cocktail should contain no chicken parts.
61) Single-malt Scotch and soda: there oughtta be a law.
62) A lime yields about an ounce of juice, a lemon a little more.
63) Two singles are better than one double.
64) Ice. Lots and lots of ice.
65) Shun novelty. Suspect innovation.
66) If you strain your citrus juice, everything will be easier to clean.
67) Measure, measure, measure.
68) Betty Crocker Moment #361: 2 tablespoons = 1 ounce; 3 teaspoons = 1 tablespoon.
69) When all else fails, have a Martini.
70) The perfect Martini: There is no such thing as the perfect Martini.Make it the way it tastes best to you.
71) Provided that you remember that there is no such thing as a chocolate Martini.

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

EXPLOSION this time, not Implosion

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/jhancock/www/story/whale.html

If you have the time (and bandwidth) the video is great. I thought I'd point out that they used around 2300 pds of explosive to bring down Trojan's cooling tower. 499 feet of steel, concrete and rebar.

For the whale they used around 1000 pounds of explosive. And people said the 70's were full of hippies and pot smokers. Wait.....maybe they WERE stoned!!...

I see this as a great example of what happens when no one asks WHY....Someone had a good idea (seemingly), Tim 'The Tool Man' Taylor's brother said he could make it work, and no one stopped to ask why......

So the next time you have your own whale in your life to take care of, ask yourself why first....

Otherwise, your last words could be.....

HEY............WATCH THIS!!!!!!!!!!

Monday, May 22, 2006

End of an era(s)

Trojan Cooling Tower Toppled
Over a Ton of Explosives Used to Drop Tower
RAINIER, Ore. -- The cooling tower at the Trojan nuclear plant is gone. Demolition crews destroyed the 499-foot cooling tower at Oregon's only commercial nuclear power plant just after seven Sunday morning. With a rumble, the tower leaned to the side and collapsed upon itself - leaving a cloud of dust and a pile of rubble. It took less than ten seconds and roughly a ton of explosives to complete. Portland General Electric ordered the tower destroyed as part of the Trojan decommissioning. The only nuclear plant in Oregon is located about 40 miles north of Portland along the Columbia River.

Yes, I watched them build it, so it was fitting that at 7am, Sunday, I watched them (via TV) destroy it. I remember camping near it in the 70's in the Boy Scouts (that might explain my mutation). Hiking up to the fences to see it up close. I remember the fears in later years about what if Chernobyl happened here, and I remember all the voting to close it for good, to remove the waste producer from 'green' Oregon (well, we did ship the waste WA, and now the rest is bound for NV).

Did you know the tower was built 499 feet tall? Because at 500 feet they would have had to paint it, hence the reason for 499 and budget restrictions.

Homer Simpson works at a nuclear plant (what a happy coincedence) and MANY Simpson references can be found throughout Portland. Ain't it great to have the creator from here?

Live well Portlanders, we now can focus on more pertinent issues...like why DIDN'T the McMenamins buy Trojan and turn it into a brewpub?

Monday, May 15, 2006

I still laugh at this

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/videos/waterbed.html

This was sent to me by a friend a looong time ago, and yet I can still chuckle at this when watching.

I love practical jokes that don't really 'harm' anyone. So of course, I start thinking of some of the other fun ones that I have done in the past.

Making Ex-Lax brownines, and cutting out the logo and placing at the bottom of the plate, so they can find it when they are almost done with them.

Saran wrap in the bathroom.

Subsituting canned dog food for 'stew' for unsuspecting roomates.

Calling managers to non-existent aisles in grocery stores for sales assistance.

Calling courtesy clerks to non-existent aisles for 'wet' clean ups.

Creating 'fake' press releases for April Fools Day announcing company shutdowns. (They work...just ask Diana Hunt...lol)

Setting stereo in living room to go off (loud) in the 2am-3am time, placing packing tape across roomates door (sticky side to him) about chest/face hi....always good fun.

Signing friends (lol..okay..maybe FORMER friends) up for AARP/Hearing Aid/etc and requesting phone calls for more information.

And my favorite still, giving people wrong driving directions when stopped on street. I will usually send them in the most opposite direction I can.

How bout you guys? Any favorites?

Friday, May 12, 2006

Is anybody in there?

http://www.itsawonderfulinternet.com/

I know it's sunny out, no snow (at least here), but hey, it's a good yarn.

So now of course today's ponderings are (eeek) about life outside of the box (IBM of course).

How reliant have we become on these items for our entertainment and information? I know I personally catch myself become hooked, using the dual screens to look up news on both screens. Or playing WoW on one while surfing on the other...how much longer until we can truly get chip implanted to hook it straight to our brains (and release those wonnnnderful endorphins)?

From from a rookie blogger to suggest, but here I go.

Turn off the box, go outside and DO something. Sports, yardwork, walking, water-ballon fights...heck if you must, do a live-action WoW fight (I'll find that link, again, someday..but at least those geeks were outside)...

Inside will always be there, Outside is where it's at.....

Monday, May 08, 2006

Perspectives

Below is a 'view' section from a friend of mine. It's scary, because there's kernels of truth in it. And it's your job to determine what truth you find. As we move on in our lives, perspective takes on new meanings with each passing day/month/year, life events, and world events. I remember when gas hit $1.00 for the first time, now we whine about $2.80 being never seen again. I remember when the US was a 'superpower' to be feared and not to be trifled with. Now we apparently will send our troops in, but not allow them to fight to win with the full resources available to them.

Enjoy~~~~~~~


~ Now that food has replaced sex in my life, I can't even get into my own pants.

~ Marriage changes passion. Suddenly you're in bed with a relative.

~ I saw a woman wearing a sweat shirt with "Guess" on it.So I said "Implants?" She hit me.

~ How come we choose from just two people to run forpresident and over fifty for Miss America?

~ A good friend will come and bail you out of jail...but, a true friend will be sitting next to you saying, "Wow...that was fun!"

~ I signed up for an exercise class and was told to wear loose-fitting clothing. If I HAD any loose-fitting clothing, I wouldn't have signed up in the first place!

~ When I was young we used to go "skinny dipping," now I just "chunky dunk."

~ Don't argue with an idiot; people watching may not be able to tell the difference.

~ Wouldn't it be nice if whenever we messed up our life we could simply press 'Ctrl Alt Delete' and start all over? AMEN, AMEN !!

~ Why is it that our children can't read a Bible in school, but they can in prison?

~ Wouldn't you know it...Brain cells come and brain cells go, but FATcells live forever.

~ Why do I have to swear on the Bible in court when the Ten Commandments cannot be displayed outside?

~ Bumper sticker of the year:"If you can read this, thank a teacher -and, since it's in English, thank a soldier"

And just remember....Life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer you are to the end, the faster it goes!

Monday, May 01, 2006

DOH!!!

http://portlandtribune.com/simpsons/

As MANY of you know, I am a Simpson's Geek. Love em, I feel they are a more accurate photo-shot of the average American family vs. the Huxtable and Waltons combined. They fight, yell, and break things. But in the end, Dad's loveable and they usually will eat together. I do have the first 6 seasons on DVD, will get the 7th soon. My boys love them, want to watch them over and over. So there is hope for the next generation.

I am also a SG-1 fan, so I'll leave it at that for those who have NO idea what I'm talking about, (only have 5 seasons of that one).

Other than those, my TV viewing is pretty limited to news (have to pretend to know what's going on) and various sports (usually on in background).

Oh...and I'm a WoW near-fanatic. Can easily lose hours there, then wonder why I'm so hungry and my eyes hurt.