News, Punctuation, and Cocktails

09. June, 2007 | by John Moroney

News

Keith is back from Reboot 9.0 and has pictures of the glorious occasion on his Flickr page. Welcome home, Keith! We’re still waiting for more pictures of Quigley, the world’s cutest kitten, to be published. C’mon, Keith, put up a lightbox here!

In other news, Kevin is still in the Antarctic, studying the philosophic theories of Emperor penguins as they relate to the religious practices of Asian subcontinental neocontortional mystics. I have no idea what that means, but whatver the hell makes Kevin happy, yeah? Come back soon, Kevin; Keith and I haven’t really figured out why you installed a fuzzy logic Linux system in the coffee maker, but we do know that the damned thing is suddenly demanding equal pay for equal work and it has an ACLU lawyer.

After a pitched three-day battle, Mr. Moroney was recently forcibly removed from a pile of cocktail waitresses and empty nitrous oxide cannisters by his publisher, who was assisted by a band of mercenaries who may or may not have been the A-Team. Mr. Moroney’s Martini shaker was confiscated and the birthday celebration deprogramming was begun. We expect more TV out of Mr. Party-in-a-Box just as soon as the normal, everyday chemicals replace the fun ones. Our sincerest wishes of quick recovery to all those on the extraction team.

Punctuation

To answer a question, the British are allowed to place punctuation outside of quotation marks, as in, “That’s really weird”. The British are also allowed to drive on the wrong side of the road and retain a monarchy when even the most fascist of dictators claims to have been elected. In the parts of the world that have advanced past the thirteenth century, the punctuation marks go inside the quotes. Always.

“And don’t go adding a ‘u’ to words like ‘color,’ neither!” said John. “You’re an American and you will spell like one!”

Cocktails!

Thank God, we made it to the good bits! Happy Hour, hooray and huzzah! While we are certainly past the age of doing shots of liquor for the fun of quickly getting drunk, we are not past the age of having fun and acting like idiots occasionally. Though he did not create the recipe, this is the national shot of John’s bar and he is committed to spreading its gospel of fizzy intoxication. Order this little bastard and watch your brain fizzle into goofy numbness.

Mind Eraser

In a short tumbler filled with ice:

  • Thin layer of root beer schnapps
  • Thicker layer of Kahlua
  • Full shot of vodka (the smoother the better)
  • Top with soda

Into this devious little concoction place a short fat straw (colloquially know as a “turbo straw”). DO NOT STIR. Put your hands behind your back and suck the whole thing up as quickly as you can, trying to beat your friends because the loser of this race buys the round. The root beer hits with a touch of chemical sweetness, then the Kahlua goes up the straw and coats the mouth so the vodka goes through unnoticed, and lastly the soda washes it all down. Five minutes later your face goes numb, at which point you should promptly have another.

Enjoy!