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April 06 2012
On Cocktails And Serious Sam
Amazon.com Widgets
A college professor walks into a bar. "Bring me a martinus," he says.
The bartender smiles politely and says, "You mean martini?"
"If I want ore than one," snaps the professor, "I'll order them."
Bada bing!
I had a copy for years, but glitter glue(!) got spilled on it, so it was kind of a mess. And it was out of print, so impossible to replace. But I was very excited to see it got reprinted in 2007, so I grabbed a copy.
Last night, I made a Mama's Martini:
- 6 part vanilla vodka (Stoli in this case)
- 1 part apricot brandy (I actually used Marie Brizard Apry, which is a top notch apricot liqueur)
- 3-5 dashes of Angostura bitters
- 3-5 dashes of lemon juice
This was real good. Probably a tad sweeter with the Apry than the recipe wanted, so maybe I would add a little more lemon juice next time. And probably try it with the Barrel-aged Bitters from Fee Brothers too.
Then we cracked op
en a beer that was recently added to my "365 Beers" Pinterest board - an O'Hara's Irish Stout. And this too was very very good. A real drinkable stout, with great flavor and only 4.3% ABV, so it went down really well while playing Serious Same 3: BFEAnd we came really close to finishing it, I think. We blew through the Last Man On Earth level, after having some trouble with it last week. And then we went quite far in the final level, The Guardian Of Time. At least I think we went quite far. We played for about an hour and a half until finally getting taken out. But even after we finish, I think we may crank the difficulty (we're playing on Hard) and give it another whirl. It's been fun and the three of us have had some serious chuckles. I am working on a fan fiction retelling of our game that I need to get back to.
September 27 2011
September 14 2011
September 13 2011
August 31 2011
Short Reviews
Write and browse reviews fast with our convenient 250 character limitAugust 22 2011
Yucata - Sun Temple of the Maya
Free online games with human players. No costs, no ads, pure fun! [August 11 2011
April 07 2011
February 03 2011
February 02 2011
Cocktails 'n' Gaming: Sazerac
Wow, I need to do a post today before I get too far behind on my Cocktail 'n' Gaming posts!
Last week, we went Olde School again, this time with the New Orleans classic, the Sazerac, with the recipe from David Woolrich's wonderful book Imbibe!
- 1/2 cube sugar
- 2 oz whiskey (must be rye. I used Jim Beam)
- 2 dashes of Peychaud's Bitters
- lemon twist
- splash of absinthe (I used the wonderful Spanish absinthe Obsello)
I'll quote the good doctor's mixing instructions, which came from the late Tome Handy at the Sazerac Bar :
Frappe an old-fashioned flat bar-glass; then take a mixing glass and muddle half a cube of sugar (1/2 tsp) with a little water; add some ice, a jigger of good whiskey, 2 dashes o Peychaud's bitters and a piece of twisted lemon peel; stir well until cold, then throw the ice out of the bar-glass, dash several drops of absinthe into the same, and rinse well with the absinthe. Now strain the Cocktail into the frozen glass and server with ice water on the side.
I finally came across a bottle of Peychaud's in a local grocery store, of all places, so I was dying to finally mix up a real Sazerac. To "frappe" a glass means to fill it with chipped ice and let it set a while. It didn't say to add any ice to the drink, so we didn't. It tasted real good!
For beers, we had a hit and a miss. Micheal brought over a bottle of Southern Tier iniquity Imperial Black Ale, which was the hit. Really full taste with lots of things going on. A "black" ale, which is odd for an IPA but really works here.
Second beer poured was one of the Samuel Adams "Barrel Room Collection", the American Kriek. It is a red fruity beer, which uses black cherries for flavoring. It was just too fruity for us.
Finally, for gaming, we finished up the last of the "Terrorist Hunt" maps in Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2
January 21 2011
The Other Places
I actually have a few other blogs, although I'm trying to cut back :) I've previously mentioned my music blog, Vehement Flame, where I try to post some music every day and try to put out a sporadic podcast with some new and old music.
I also have a Tumblr blog, where I post short snippets, images and quotes that I come across on the net. You can find it here but I also have a page dedicated to it on this blog. You can see the link at the right, ever so subtly names My Tumblr, which also displays my Tumblr entries, albeit in a not very pretty way. But it gets the job done.
The only other one that I try to keep up with is my Daemon Dancing In The Dark blog, which is my technical musings. I haven't posted to it in far too long, though. I really need to, as the entry ideas are piling up!
And while I'm pointing out things in my sidebar, let me also direct you to some widgets I'm using. One displays my 5 most recent Twitpics, another shows you my recently read books from Goodreads, while the last one shows a random set of 5 games from my game collection on Boardgamegeek. It only lists 188, but I actually have about 500 :)
My main bookshelves. The left one contains wargames, sorted chronologically. The right one contains more family oriented games, as well as sci-fi & fantasy games.
This is the shelf of old Avalon Hill and Victory Games. I have them split off because they generally line up pretty wll.
- 5 Reasons Tumblr Has Me Hooked Now (socialtimes.com)
- Create a Tumblr blogroll? (ask.metafilter.com)
January 20 2011
Cocktails 'n' Gaming: James Bond
The cocktail for our Cocktails 'n' Co-op Gaming night last night was an old standbye - the James Bond Martini, from one of my favorite cocktail books, The Martini Book: 201 Ways to Mix the Perfect American Cocktail
James Bond Martini
- 6 parts gin (the usual - Bombay Sapphire)
- 2 parts vodka (in this case, Tito's Handmade)
- 1 part Lillet blanc
- Lemon Twist
Just shake with cracked ice and strain into a nice frozen cocktail glass, and garnish with a lemon twist. Pretty refreshing, actually, even if mixing gin and vodka seems like overkill.
We followed that with a couple beers. First up was one of the more unusual kinds of beers - a Rauchbeir, which is a German beer with a heavy "smokiness". We tried the Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbeir Marzen a few weeks ago and found it, interesting. It was our first Rauchbeir, so we perhaps weren't quite ready for it, because we really liked this one, the Weizen. Either we're getting more used to it, or this one isn't as overpowering, but the smokiness added to the flavor, rather than overwhelming it, like it seemed to with the Marzen.
And we followed that with a bottle from a local artisanal brewer, Pretty Things Brewery. We have really enjoyed their flagship beer, Jack D'Or and found their Hedgerow Bitter a little over the top. But we really like this one, the Baby Tree - very smooth and tasty.
Gaming last night was, again, a couple of hours playing Terrorist Hunt in Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2
January 14 2011
Cocktails 'n' Gaming: Sidecar
A basic cocktail last night, for our weekly drinks 'n' gaming session. I managed to snag a few Meyer Lemons, which are so precious during these cold winter months! To keep it simple, I made a Sidecar:
- 2 oz cognac
- 1 oz Cointreau
- 1 oz fresh squeezed Meyer Lemon juice
Mix 'n' strain into an ice cold, sugar-rimmed cocktail glass. Pure heaven.
And we had a couple of brews. My co-op gaming friend and I have become somewhat addicted to artisanal brews in big bottles. First was Brooklyn Local 1 from the Brooklyn Brewery. We have had their Oktoberfest beer and while it was okay, it wasn't as good as promise from Imbibe, who put it inn their top autumn beers list. Brooklyn Local 1 is a very fizzy beer! The cork flew off when I opened it, like a champagne bottle. And it was another okay beer. A little light and too fizzy.
We followed that up with a frosty mug of Goose Island Matilda, a Belgian style pale ale. Now that was yummy - smooth, tasty and refreshing.
The beer went very well with our intense battles in the Murdercity Terrorist Hunt in Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2. While it is disappointing that you can't play the campaign in co-op mode, the three of us have been having fun with each map in the Terrorist Hunt mode. We crank the difficulty, max the number of enemies and give us each 1 extra life and that makes for a tough match, especially in this map. It's a close assault map, with enemies popping out pretty much anywhere, which makes it tough.
Related articles- Beers of The Times: Dunkel, a Brew Ideal for Long Debates (nytimes.com)
- Beer logistics at Munich's Oktoberfest (gadling.com)
October 14 2010
XTCabandonware.com
This site is dedicated to the DOS games from the past.August 05 2010
May 19 2010
Project NEMESIS
NEMESIS is a dark horror game — designed to emulate the works of H.P. Lovecraft, Stephen King, Ambrose Bierce, Brian Lumley, William Peter Blatty as well as settings such as Delta Green and the Gilchrist Trust — in a roleplaying game.April 29 2010
Allegro - A game programming library
Allegro is a game programming library for C/C++April 27 2010
April 26 2010
VASSAL Engine Web Site
VASSAL is a game engine for building and playing online adaptations of board games and card games.Maybe Soup is currently being updated? I'll try again automatically in a few seconds...
