A Tale Of Cocktails #39

Caipirinha

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Ingredients

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2 oz cachaca
2 tsp sugar
1/2 lime

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Taste: 4
Look: 7      

Cost: 8
Name: 8
Prep: 7

Alcohol: 7
Overall: 6.4

Preparation: Mush together lime and sugar in a glass. Fill glass with cracked ice and add cachaca.

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General Comments: What the hell is going on in Brazil?  The size of Europe and this is the best cocktail anyone can knock together?  This is like tequila and lime, only even more boring and not involving a worm, which was at least something to talk about whilst you forced foul-tasting death juice into your innards.

It has the advantage of being pretty powerful, I suppose, so you don't need many of them to get to whatever level of drunkenness you're planning on (I suppose the people of Rio have to come up with something to do in-between muggings).  There must be better ways to destroy one's mind and liver, though.  A cocktail should never be so bad as to make one impatient for the hangover.

Fleshing Out

OK, fine.  Sometimes I don't see the wood for the trees. Admittedly, those trees might have zombies hiding behind them, so you can understand my choice of focus.  Even so, how did I miss this?

(In The Flesh spoilers below the fold.)

Belatations

Sweet Thoth's gall bladder, how did I manage to miss my own blog's fifth birthday?  For shame, SpaceSquid!

Thanks as always to everyone who reads this particular episodic screed of uncouth madness, whether you've been here for the full half decade or just started with this post.

BS In the US

I've been keeping quiet about the tenth anniversary of the Iraq Wars first shots, on the advice of Charlie Piece. My thinking at the time was pretty poor, and the only thing that stopped it being dangerous was that no-one (including myself) was ever stupid enough to try and get me into a position of any real power..

That said, I wasn't so utterly detached from reality and risk assessment that there aren't any war supporters I'm not fully happy to tear to pieces.  There's wrong, and there's the kind of smug, careless wrongness that's so transparently idiotic it can only have been transcribed at all as an act of revenge.  Here's John Yoo, last seen insisting that the president has the authority to crush the testicles of any young boy he damn well pleases, explaining why it remains clear a decade on that the Iraq War has turned up all aces:

Courts award damages based on the harm to the victim and the harm to society. Suppose you thought that the Iraq war was a mistake. If so, isn’t the proper remedy to restore Saddam Hussein’s family and the Baath Party to power in Iraq? If you are unwilling to consider that remedy, aren’t you conceding that on balance, the benefits of the war outweigh the costs?

If nothing else, you'd think lawyers would want to come up with arguments that don't make them look too stupid to practise law, or for that matter, practise lace-tying.  If you buy something that turns out to cost vastly more than you were expecting it to cost, and turns out to be massively defective in addition, your only choices are to give it back in exchange for no refund, or admit you're glad you bought it?

John Yoo currently teaches law at UC Berkeley.  You could play students Ally MacBeal episodes backwards in French and they'd have a better chance of grasping consistent legal thinking.  It comes as no surprise to anyone paying attention that Yoo has the moral compass of Ming the Merciless' accountant, but the idea that his opponents are can only wish to resurrect Hussein, rather than two hundred thousand other Iraqis, is proof that these ghouls not only don't care about the hideous loss of civilian life, they're unable to even remember it

Friday Paintbench

Nothing finished again this week, but it's been a little while since I had any pictures up, so here's a rundown of what's currently being worked on.  First up, a quartet of 40K models.  We've got the two warlords from Dark Vengeance:

Red Corsair, rather than Crimson Slaughter

as well as the equivalent miniature from Battle for Macragge:

A Kringrimmi Space Squid

and, just for the sake of variety, the beginnings of a Blood Angel Sanguinary Guard:

Also on display are two genestealers for Space Hulk:

the long-in-progress Bloody Reaver:

the Dark Cultist from Talisman:

a House Piper knight for my Riverlands army:

and the yet-to-be undercoated third Strike Cruiser for my Blood Angel fleet:

I hear what you're saying, internet.  Not very much, is it?  Fine.  Just to please you, I'll go out and by a Tervigon tomorrow.  Everyone happy now?

Life Imitating Art

Secret Service: Just one question, Mr President. Is your car diesel or petrol?
President Obama: Leave it alone, Secret Service!
Secret Service: Oh no no no no, this is just curiosity, Mr President. Diesel or -
President Obama: It's petrol, it's petrol!
Secret Service: Right.  So it's not diesel?
President Obama: No, it's not diesel.
Secret Service: Right. So it'd do a terrible amount of damage if I put diesel in?
President Obama: Yes it would. It would completely ruin the car's engine.
Secret Service: Well, hahaha! I certainly won't be doing that, then!  HAHAHAHAHAHA!

It's a surprising career change for Mrs Doyle, but then no less strange than that exploding milk-float, I suppose.

The Whole "No Drinking" Thing Is Still Stupid, Though

I'm not sure this is necessarily popular with the whole congregation, and maybe there are couples who belong to this church who'd rather not be denied a wedding in the sight of God, but the cause itself is entirely worthy, so good on them for that.

If nothing else, this is another useful reminder that when people attempt to prevent the legalisation of gay marriage on the grounds of religious freedom, they actually mean they want to block religious freedom to any faith or denomination that disagrees with them.