Janet's grandmother passed away yesterday evening. Her health has been up and down for some time now, but it's never easy. We'll be heading to Ohio for the services and I won't be posting again until next week. Thanks for all your support.
Lady Luck Cocktail Recipe | In The Spirit
I intended to do all Christmas cocktails this month, but I stumbled onto this new cocktail website and I had to choose something. I love the interface and the pictures. And, at least it's green and has a star on top.
Lady Luck:
2 shots Gin
1 shot Blue curacy
Orange Juice
Fill glass with ice add Gin and Blue Curacao then top with Orange Juice, stir. Garnish with a slice of star fruit if you've got it.
This site also has a great picture of how to layer a drink in the Cheat's corner section. I've never seen it done. I've read descriptions of how to use the spoon, but my attempts have never worked. I think I'm ready to try again now that I've seen this:
Since the Lady Luck isn't as Christmasy as I'd liked, here's the Mistletoe Martini (apropos for my myspace friends).
4 parts vodka
1/2 oz. Melon liquor such as Midori
Splash of grenadine
Mix the vodka and melon liqueur in a martini shaker. Strain into a martini glass. Add grenadine. The grenadine will sink to the bottom of the glass making the drink red and green. From the Friday Drink Recipe Archives.
And, if you're looking for some stylish cocktail accoutrements or a unique vintage stereo cabinet repurposed as a liquor cabinet stop by Leanne and Kathryn's Art Sale tomorrow from 10am to 4pm corner of Beverly and North (Baton Rouge) where I'll have some items from my collection.
Xmas gifts that help Hurricane Relief Efforts.
Please comment and help me generate a list of Christmas gifts that can be given where a significant portion of the proceeds go to Hurricane relief efforts. I'm sure we all know we can make donations, but it is nice to give an item to friends and family. The link above goes to a list of items from the Red Cross where different retailers are donating profits to the Red Cross hurricane relief efforts. For my gift-giving needs, the emergency preparedness kit from Target would have been perfect, but they're sold-out online. Googling turns up a bunch of cds, which don't work for many of the people on my list. Other than that, the only promising item was a nice fleur de lis pendant necklace that will almost certainly arrive after xmas.
Dealhack Holiday Shipping Deadlines at Popular Online Stores
Handy list for those of us shopping online this season.
Via BoingBoing
Routemasters - Last Stop!
Today is the last day the doubledecker busses of London will run. This site commemorates the icon.
Sniffle
gHacks � Free Music List December 2005
Site listing for free music downloads that are truly free, with notes.
EducationGuardian.co.uk | eG weekly | Self-study
"When a young man masturbates, exactly how distracted does he get? An experiment performed on students at the University of California, Berkeley aimed to find out."
"Each student was given a laptop computer with a keypad "designed to be operated easily using only the non-dominant hand."
"Ariely and Loewenstein say their results are "striking" and more than confirm what most people believe about young men as a group - that when aroused, they (1) become sexually attracted to things otherwise offputting; (2) grow more willing to engage in morally questionable behaviour that might lead to sex; and (3) are more likely to have unprotected sex."
Tonight is the opening reception for the Paul Dean and Scott Finch show. I've seen Scott's work and it's amazing. Paul's will be amazing I'm sure, but he was putting the finishing touches on the hanging when I got the preview. Hope to see you there. Here are some representative examples from the Baton Rouge Gallery website, though not pieces from the current show.
Scott Finch
Paul Dean
BURO VORMKRIJGERS--> home of the Pong Clock!
24 hour game of pong where the left player sucks, but always scores on the hour, while the right player is pretty good and always scores on the minute. New game starts at midnight. Unfortunately not available in time for xmas and no price is set, however "It will be a reasonable price for a designer clock, and NOT outrageously expensive." We'll see about that. The good news is there is a free screensaver download for windows. To get to the clock and screensaver, follow the link above, then select portfolio on the right, then show all and scroll to find the thumbnail of the pong clock, or check out some of the other great designs.
Via Information Aesthetics
AccuRadio.com -- Internet radio YOU control!
Every couple of months I go on a web radio jag, trying to find a station that suits my tastes to put on in the background while I work. I've never found a station that I've been happy with for more than a short period of time. Maybe I found one yesterday. AccuRadio is free and has a ton of channels, but I've been stuck on "High Fidelity: Indie rock and other cool and eclectic tracks". They do a nice job of mixing newer acts like Wolf Parade and Franz Ferdinand with the indie rock cannon (Guided by Voices, Flaming Lips, Pavement...) and older influences (Velvet Underground, Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, the Beatles...). They're also great about showing the song info with album info, cover art, and link to Amazon to order anything you like. There are also customization options where you can weed out artists you don't like. The one thing I would change is mix in a little more electronica. So, after listening to this all day yesterday, I just now clicked on the sub-channels tab in the player window and what do I see? "Highdrophonic: All your favorite songs from our High Fidelity and Hiptronica channels brought together in one massive channel!" I'll flip over as soon as this Stephen Malkmus song finishes.
Topsy Turvy™ Upside-down Tomato Planter : Home Garden & Garage.com
We'll try this next season. Don't think we'll let them get as big as this customer did though:
WHITE CHRISTMAS DREAM
What better way to get into the holiday spirit than with spirits?
• 1 oz. amaretto
• 1 oz. heavy cream
• 1 oz. vodka
Mix all ingredients with ice in a shaker . Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with nutmeg.
Cheers!
Maria E. Pineres : A Rogues' Gallery
Celebrity mugshots in needlepoint! Can't insert pictures due to my ongoing cpu troubles, trust that it's worth following the link.
Via Metafilter
Comic 1 : Adventures in Synthetic Biology : Nature
For a friend and occasional commenter glabrous3. Is this funny? I really haven't checked it out. Flash isn't working on this temporary cpu I'm using.
Via Eyebeam reblog
Guardian Unlimited | Arts news | Mental illness link to art and sex
The rebuttal is much more interesting:
Artists are not sexy
Still dealing with my crashed hard drive, so posting will continue to be low for a while.
Friday night is the lighting of the tree in downtown Baton Rouge. It's accompanied by a displaced artist benefit art show in the black box theatre at the Shaw Center. Janet has donated a painting. There will also be a new show at the Breuner Gallery and booths and food and drink and general merriment.
Saturday we'll be making our first trip to New Orleans post-Katrina. I imagine that the drive in will be fraught with emotion. We're so looking forward to seeing our good friends and the better parts of the recovery. But we all know that's not all we'll see. For our evening's entertainment we will be seeing "Grenadine McGunkle's
Double-Wide Christmas Miracle!" The latest from No Running With Scissors, at One Eyed Jacks. The show opens Friday and runs Friday and Saturday nights at 8pm through the 30th (no shows on the 24th or 31st).
