i don't like Gene Simmons...

...so i beat him up.
note the drainage bags strapped to his chest. remember that "Super Model" episode of Aqua Teen when Shake had those all over him???!!

you found WHAT in there???!

if you know me, you know i work in inflight entertainment, which is the 'industry' way of saying media and stuff that goes on airplanes. my department puts music on planes, for example. however, i find myself more often a passenger or consumer on an airplane, rather than a person who is researching stuff for my work. and passengers put their own stuff on planes...

all this because i heard a crazy story on NPR today, about what was found in seatback pockets of airplanes. an interesting thing of note was that the grossest stuff was usually in the pocket behind the middle seat...

the story interviewed writer Scott McCartney. "You'll never look at, or reach into, an airline seat-back pocket the same after reading this. Besides being a repository for magazines, newspapers, books, iPods and air-sickness bags, seatback pockets get stuffed with all kinds of disgusting trash, from toenail clippings to mushy meals."

read about what other nastiness you can find, courtesy of the Wall Street Journal's 'The Middle Seat' column.

absynthe antics

or is it spelt absinthe?

anyway, we bought a swiss bottle at bevmo. man, i should've paid less attention to the wormwood and more to the STAR ANISE thing! as our friend DeRa says, "(i'm) NOT a fan." man, i hate the taste of nyquil, good and plenty's, black vines or whatever the hell they're called and jägermeister.

in any case, for $60 a litre, we tried to do it right. we bought sugar cubes and 'spring water'. we maintained the 5:1 H20 to absinthe ratio. we got a glass and used a cocktail shaker strainer to hold the sugar cube, in place of the elusive 'absinthe spoon'. we carefully doused the sugar cube with a turkey baster full of water into the glass of absinthe.

verdict?

i am STILL NOT A FAN OF BLACK JELLYBEANS. it made us warm, though.

"When diluted with water and a pinch of sugar, the absinthe’s taste is strong and pleasant. And the buzz has an odd way of focusing the mind — I’ve rarely been so entranced by the swish of a basketball net. " ---Brandon I. Koerner, New York Times

"It's as if every black jellybean we've ever thrown out came back to haunt us." ---AlSto, husband of venus

EPILOGUE: KeKi, my younger brother, bade farewell to his best friend, JoKa, this past weekend. JoKa is apparently going to the land of the rising sun for some law school shenanigans. lucky guy. in any case, my brother, who is the total antithesis of myself in terms of illegal living, informed me that they, too, had acquired a bottle of absinthe, from which all these law-abiding types partook. granted, they drank the s^*& STRAIGHT (read: no water to dilute, and no sugar), which i could not imagine in my wildest dreams. fortunately, my brother told me "i like black licorice," which made me shudder, but nonetheless reassured me, my brother's got a little subversiveness in him.

POSTSCRIPT: please check the entries on EROWID.COM regarding the legalities of this fine beverage, or ask JoKa about it in about six months or so...