Some Drink Recipes

I'm putting these on the internet because I believe I am the first to name the following cocktails.

Whiskey Walrus

 • Vanilla ice cream

 • Root beer (your choice of brand; what am I, your mother?)

 • American Whiskey (I like Seagram's here but again, it's no skin off my nose)

In a tall glass, place 2 scoops of ice cream. Pour two ounces of whiskey into the glass. Fill the glass with however much root beer that takes. Drink/eat, as you would an ice cream float.

Tipsy Walrus 

 • Vanilla ice cream

 • Not Your Father's alcoholic root beer

In a tall glass, pour alcoholic root beer over two scoops of ice cream.

Other Derivatives

Brandy Walrus: substitute brandy for whiskey

Mountie Walrus: substitute Canadian whiskey

Kentucky Walrus: substitute bourbon

Groovy Walrus: substitute rainbow sherbet for ice cream, 7-Up for root beer, vodka for whiskey, a muddy field at a music festival for clothing

 

I am Reading Dayn Perry

"I am reading Dayn Perry."

One says this loosely, with non-chalance. Syllables cost nothing.

Yet something packs itself into the back of your brain, like the sodden lump of chaw that is fusing with your rear molars. It becomes a part of you so gradually you don't even notice – until the surgeon is administering ether and reminding the nurse which section of your jaw will have to go.

This prose, this eddy of words, seems not so much written by the man as emanating from him. Does the flickering streetlight in the back alley "compose" photons?

Let us, together you and I, picture the man who gives us these words. Does he speak slowly, resting his sun-battered face on a grizzled paw, dispensing bad advice through refills of cheap rye? Is he on too-good terms with an ill-intentioned barkeep?

No, there is a gleam in his words. This is no dingy public house. It is the room at the horse track closest to the betting window. His relentless gob unloads one barrel at a time, a scattershot of speech to anyone within his firing radius, and some without. His tight fists are clutching thesauruses and losing tickets, but this does not prevent gesticulation. His phrases are peppered with "haberdashers" and "indigents" and he has consorted with both, comfortably. His vocabulary is that of a mid-century tobacco advertisement. He knows "catarrh" from first-hand experience.

There's a wink in the direction of his empty highball glass, and without speech you know he's offering you better odds. The vig is an Old Fashioned. What was that bookie thinking with 7/2 on Captain's Favorite, anyway?

I am reading Dayn Perry. I will die one day, but today I am reading Dayn Perry.

Found on Wikipedia: Crack Police Work

From the Wilipedia article on bearer bonds.

Updating my Linux Machine

This post is as much for my own reference as anyone else's use. Hopefully I can at least point people in the direction of what has helped me.

Network Card

I have a RealTek network card, which doesn't play nice with Linux by default. This site solved it: http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=80757#p469071

In case that link dies, the relevant portion is: 

If you are using kernel 3.0 you'll notice that the /src/Makefile has a bug that causes it to install the r8168.o file instead of the r8168.ko file

The solution is simple:

After the autorun.sh finishes, just do the following:

sudo cp src/r8168.ko   /lib/modules/3.0.0-1-amd64/kernel/drivers/net/
sudo depmod
sudo modprobe r8168

I'm not one to encourage people to leave the Church if they don't like it. To tell people to get out is to misunderstand what the Church is. No one gets kicked out of the hospital for disbelieving germ theory. The doctors just keep giving them the penicillin anyway. If you find that your relationship to the Catholic Church inside-looking-out, stick it out. I think you'll find that the grass is greener in the reflection of the stained glass windows.

That said, here's what not to do: don't tell the Church what it's supposed to be. They didn't ordain women to the priesthood in the days when powerful abbesses controlled convents and monasteries, they aren't going to start just because a woman ran the Department of State. They didn't claim two men could could marry when the emperor was doing it, they won't change their minds because Elton John is doing it.

A Totally Amazing Mind

Hey, reader(s)!

I haven't updated in a while, and this one isn't going to be very good. If there's only one universal law in the universe, it's not entropy or gravity. It's "no one cares about that weird dream you had." But, hey, this is my blog. I didn't force you at gunpoint to read it (note to self, consider this option in the future).

So anyway, I had this dream the other night that the popes came to stay at my house for the weekend. Benedict and Francis must have been doing some kind of cross country road trip or something. When the pope(s) want to crash at your place, you don't ask questions. I had been out for the evening, so when I got home they were already set up. They had brought two identical twin beds and set them up a next to each other with a nightstand in between, like Bert and Ernie. They had their night caps on and were  tucked in with the sheets up to their shoulders. I didn't know the exact protocol for saying goodnight to a pope, so I tried to kiss Benedict's ring. He wasn't wearing one so we stood there awkwardly for a minute until Francis finally said "Hey, over here!" When I went to kiss his ring he pulled it back.

We all had a good laugh.

Look Out Below

I'm clearing out a bunch of drafts that I've been meaning to publish. Don't say you weren't warned.

Some Advice

If you're confused by what Pope Francis says, read the full context.

If you're confused by the context, ignore informal papal comments entirely and read the Catechism.