Friday, June 26, 2009

Still here, still swamped. Keep prayin'.


More when I get a moment to breathe.

-J.

Posted by Joke at 11:11 AM 2 comments

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

A thousand words

This is what it's like ovah heah. (Literally! Raining like mad!)

-J.

Posted by Joke at 2:17 PM 5 comments

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Updateness for June

The meeting I had on Thursday was an epic horror show. Olympically bad.

The meeting I had on Friday (most of the same people) was considerably less bad. Still bad, mind you, but significantly less so.

This week has sucked on colossal scale.

As a fun aside, I realized that when running on an adrenaline overdose, one doesn't really need to eat for 48 hours. Or sleep much. Or well.

But, there are pinprick-sized glimmers of hope. Let's pray for that.

-J.

Posted by Joke at 6:22 AM 4 comments

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Today.

Important day today, businesswise. Prayers -- ideally scrunchy-faced ones -- are humbly requested.

(Yes, combox off.)

-J.

Posted by Joke at 9:05 AM

Saturday, June 06, 2009

This is all you need to know.

NOS went to a party last night.

He spent his time making "mocktails" and they were a hit.

Imagine what he'll do when he turns 12.

-J.

P.S. Here is his version of the "Virg-opolitan"
1 oz fresh lime juice (note the techniques of cutting the lime for maximum juice extraction, and for the extraction process)
1 oz simple syrup (the brown stuff next to the simple syrup -- the clear stuff -- is demerara sugar syrup)

1 dash orange flower water
1½ oz cranberry juice (the kind without corn syrup, etc.)
Shake over cracked ice, strain and serve in a stemmed, chilled cocktail glass -- incidentally, he shattered one while practicing -- with an orange twist.

Posted by Joke at 7:05 AM 2 comments

Thursday, June 04, 2009

One more thing...again.

Please do not stop the prayin', chantin', spinning around a circle of chicken bones, etc.

As we're not off the hook ovah heah.

-J.

Posted by Joke at 11:51 AM 5 comments

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Am I the only one?

Oh, sure.

LOTS of people speak of tolerance these days. But it seems only I practice it.

At least in terms of beverages.

If you think people have weird issues about food -- "Oh, I don't eat anything red." -- they get even weirder about the potable stuff.

The good thing is that sometimes you will see those on opposite sides of the issue start taking bites out of each other. Those who prefer a gin martini and those who opt for a vodkatini are legendarily at each other's throats. Slurs about blandness fly one way and insults about the vileness of botanicals are hurled in retaliation.

Rye drinkers sneer at bourbon drinkers, and so do Scotch drinkers who, in turn are sneered upon by cognac drinkers. Cocktailians are looked upon with great disdain by those who drink wine, and beer drinkers consider both to be insufferable.

And so the long Happy Hour wears on.

But Chez Joke is an oasis.

I like a tipple with no small frequency. And, and mark this as vital, so long as the stuff is of unimpeachable quality, I harbor no disdain for any ethanol based reviver. Tequila and rum, Canadian and Irish, Absinthe and Armagnac...they all find me a willing participant.

The thing is that the quality has to be there. I'd rather not have anything if it's crap. Which is a huge change from when my parents were my age. In those days, the "grownups" drank. MadMen is not 'zaggerating.

My friend D. insisted his grandmother has managed to hang on as long as she did by drinking rye Manhattans every day (one with lunch, one with dinner). I remember my dad coming from the office every day and having a little something. Them my mother would join him so he'd have another. Then wine with dinner and, during the weekend, a nightcap or two. Every day.

And my parents' friends (and my friends' parents) were equally absorbent.

The funny thing is that, going by the photographic evidence, almost all they drank was -- and there's no getting away from it -- shit. In some photo from ca. 1972 a bottle of a certain gin is visible. This stuff, which I will assume tasted then the way it tastes today, is no better than a perfumed turpentine, but there are my parents and their cronies...cheerfully drinking it. The list is endless.

The only solution to this is to become a drinking meritocrat.

-J.

Posted by Joke at 11:37 PM 8 comments

No, seriously...I couldn't.

Let's just put it this way: I learned my lesson on jinxing things, blogwise.

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I'll post something useful, charming and innocuous soon.

-J.

Posted by Joke at 9:42 AM 4 comments