Jack Daniel’s really needs a good stiff one (and probably a drink, too)
Okay, I was wrong. I told Enas Yorl that the difference between Jack Daniel’s green label and black label is age. It’s not. Green label is just the stuff the official Jack Daniel’s tasters consider not quite good enough for the Brand.
I was going to call “official taster” my dream job, but apparently I have a positive preference for inadequate whiskey. I love the green label. I suppose they could go with the “Weasel likes it, it’s crap!” gambit.
What is Jack Daniel’s Green Label Tennessee Whiskey?
Jack Daniel’s Green Label is a lighter, less mature whiskey with a lighter color and character. The barrels selected for Green Label tend to be on the lower floors and more toward the center of the warehouse where the whiskey matures more slowly.
Lighter. ‘Bout right. As in “lighter fluid.”
I’d give a link for that quotation, but I can’t. By law. I went poking around the Jack Daniel’s web site (which is right where you think it is) and I spotted this:
IF YOU HAVE, OR PLAN TO HAVE, A WEB SITE AND WISH TO LINK TO OUR WEB SITE, PLEASE ENTER INTO THIS LINKING AGREEMENT AND PROVIDE YOUR INFORMATION BELOW.
“Fascinating,” I thought. “Tell me more.”
Each site shall only market products to adults and shall have an independently audited demographic indicating at least 70% of its site visitors are of legal drinking age.
Uh oh. I don’t know how to “independently audit” you guys, but if 30% of you aren’t under the age of 21, then you’re clearly in the developmentally delayed demographic. Is it legal to market likker to retards?
No site will use religious or other cultural symbols in a way that is likely to offend a particular religious or ethnic group.
Oh.
No site will use sexual slang, situations or depictions, or exploit the human form in any manner that offends local standards of decency.
Ummmmm…
You agree not to use the link on any web site that disparages the Brand, the Site, or the Brand’s products or services, or which infringes on the Brand’s or Brown-Forman Corporation’s or its affiliates’ intellectual property or other rights.
Ah. Well, see…
You agree not to use the link on any web site that contains, or links to any other web sites that contain obscene, discriminatory, offensive, political or pornographic material of any kind.
Okay. Thanks.
There’s a lot more to it, which you can read for yourself by going to the obvious URL and adding /linkingpolicy.aspx (I couldn’t link to directly in any case because “You may link only to the opening page for each of the Brand’s Sites and you may not skip the web pages requiring the viewers of our Sites to verify their age.”).
Who knew distillers were such tight-asses?
I’ve cracked open my brand new 1.75 liter bottle, and it’s delish. Happy Friday the 13th! My uvula just went numb.
July 13, 2007 — 4:48 pm
Comments: 16
The Steamboat McGoo thread
The once was a steam-boatin’ man
Who sported a show-boatin’ tan.
The ladies said, “my!
He’s as brown and as spry
As that dream-boatin’ Ed McMahon!”
Steamboat McGoo is in the hospital being fitted with a shiny knew titanium knob. Here’s a helpful rhyming dictionary. Do it. Do it for McGoo.
July 12, 2007 — 6:32 pm
Comments: 27
What I Did on My Summer Vacation, by S. Weasel
I’m back. And I don’t have anything in particular to say for myself, so let’s get right to it.
The journey happened more or less as predicted, with the interesting bits under the heading “or less.” Like the prop plane that flew the last leg across Tennessee. We were directed out on the tarmac, where half a dozen small twin engine planes were buzzing lazily in the sun. Ours was gray and grubby, without livery. I’m sure it carried ordinance in Dubya Dubya Eye Eye.
We had to walk up to it and climb steps, just like the old days. Huh. I just thought. The last time I flew into Tri Cities airport it was in a plane exactly like this one. I had an explosive nosebleed, which I usually did at altitude. It produced gratifying response in stewardesses, as they were called in another era. I was going to see my grandmother. I was seven.
Anyhow, after that — hey, did anybody spot the flaw in my master plan? We showed up boozeless and planned to buy liquor on the way up. On a Sunday. In rural Tennessee. The horrible realization that this was EXTREMELY unlikely didn’t dissuade us from driving to several liquor stores in panic and leaving greasy noseprints on the front door. The rest of the party weren’t expected up until the next morning, so there was nothing for it but…beer. You can buy beer in the grocery stores any time.
Now, I like the occasional beer, but as an inebriation vehicle, it sucks. The ratio of booze molecules to pee molecules is severely whack. I bought two six packs and only managed to down four beers. I was horribly sober after, but Jesus — that’s more liquid than it generally takes to bathe my person. I fell asleep at last and all night long I dreamed of urination. Everywhere I went in the dreamscape, I had a delightful, satisfying whizz. I didn’t pee the bed, but I gave the idea serious consideration.
So anyway, there wasn’t really time to go stand on my own grave. My cousin was like, “do you want to drive over and…you know. The usual?” And I’m like, “nah. We can just wave as we go by.”
The rest was fine. I guess. The liquor stores opened next morning and I don’t remember much after that.
— 5:56 pm
Comments: 10
…and then came home again…
Last day, but this one’s going to hurt.
Booking flights via little airports means the occasional bad connection day like this one: five hours sitting in the airport in Memphis. If I’m lucky, there will be free broadband and you and me can catch up and shoot the shit and stuff. I don’t feel lucky. Boston Logan charges for wifi; I have to assume it’s a trend.
Between the layover and the change in times zone, it’s going to be late-late-late when I get home.
Memphis. Feh. I once got kicked out of boarding school in Memphis, you may recall.
I’m not even getting fed on this flight. Nothing at all at stage one, and something called a $5 snack on stage two. According to the (surprisingly interesting) website airlinemeals.net, this is an example of the $5 snack.
You know what, though? I totally don’t mind buying food, if it means a major reduction in ticket price. I’ve often wondered how much it costs to provide those absurd and unpleasant hot meals, what with the ovens and the carts and the logistics and everything. On the upside, though, I suppose it gives the flight attendants an excuse to walk up and down checking on us, in case somebody goes all loop-de-loo at 35,000 feet.
See you in the morning, Insha’Allah.
July 11, 2007 — 1:26 am
Comments: 40
The Gathering o’ the Mustelids
So, why does Clan Weasel gather here every year? This is why: the Grandfather Mountain Highland Games, the largest Scottish games outside Scotland. It started in 1956, about the same time my father and grandfather built the original hunting cabin on the side of the mountain. My dad hasn’t missed the games since.
He hasn’t been to the actual games in years (and neither have I, for that matter). But he wears the tartan hat with the ribbons and deedly-ball on, and stumps around rolling his R’s and saying “wha hae!” and drinking whiskey.
The joke is, as far as anyone knows, there’s not a drop of Scots blood in my dad. He descends from a line of pasty English people who were deported to Virginia in the 18th Century for either religious nutcasery or poaching, depending on who you ask.
My mother’s family traces its origins to a Scot, however. Clan MacStoat will be there. I think our clan motto is “another wee dram won’t kill me.”
When I were a puppy, some damn fool bought me the whole suit, with the jacket and the knee socks and everything. I loved that thing. I swaggered around in it long after I’d outgrown it. By the end, I bobbled out of the seams like some obscene tartan sausage.
There will be ALL KINDS of merchandise on offer up the mountain. If you’re bored some day, pick a Scots surname and Google for the original version of the family coat of arms, and compare it to the Americanized version. The American version always has twice as much shit on it, with extra tinsel and sparklies and unicorns and orcs. Like it came out of the Society for Creative Anachronism’s prom decoration committee.
And that’s what we’re not doing Tuesday.
July 10, 2007 — 1:18 am
Comments: 49
Escaped!
Hello! I am not here! I was here when I wrote this, but now you’re reading it, so I must be gone! Yes, through the miracle of deferred posting, I can communicate with you, my minions, even though I’m four days in the past and/or nowhere near a wifi access point!
“Nowhere near a wifi access point!?” you exclaim, wetting yourself with terror and confusion. “Wherever can that be in this modern age of instantaneous digital communication?”
I am at the family cabin, way, way back in the hills. If I visit the folks while they’re here, I can wear nothing but jeans and t-shirts and they don’t make that “L is for Loser” sign at me.
So four days from now, which will be yesterday by today, I flew into the Tri-Cities airport and met my cousin, who drove up from Alabama. We do this every year, so I can tell you exactly how it went (will go) down.
We drove into the tanktown where I was born to visit my grandparents’ house. We agreed that it looked quite small compared to our memories of it, but that the current owners are taking good care of it. Only, they really shouldn’t have cut that tree down.
Then we went and stood on my grave and I said, “ha ha! Get me! I’m standing on my own grave!” My grandfather sold the old family farm to a cemetary and got a family plot and first dibs on the location as part of the deal. He chose a hillside he used to plow when he was a teenager. He and my grandmother and assorted Weasels are there, but somehow their headstones are jammed up against the headstones of the neighbors, so it looks like they were buried standing up. I hope they don’t bury me standing up; I suspect I’ll be awfully tired.
Finally, we head up into the mountains. Along the way, we stop and buy liquor. It’s not that there won’t be liquor at the cabin. There will be a very great deal of liquor at the cabin. But if you bring your own, nobody can tell how much you drink. Plus, I can get Jack Daniel’s Green Label here, and I can’t back home. I like it. It hurts.
My folks won’t get here until tomorrow, which is today now. I’ll tell you about that in a minute, four days ago, which will be tomorrow by then.
July 9, 2007 — 1:11 am
Comments: 38
What, Friday again?
July 6, 2007 — 10:02 pm
Comments: 34
Excuse me, there’s a weasel in the ballpit
That’s what the web reminds me of. It’s nothing like a super highway, it doesn’t hugely feel like an interconnected web. The way I do it, it’s more like swimming in a big, colorful, bobbly pit of information balls.
I’ve never actually been in a ballpit, for I am old. Wikipedia tells me they have hygeine issues — they’re full of children and unwashed balls. Bad stuff floats to the bottom and stays there. So, see, the comparison is perfect.
Anyhow…like so: click on a link in your own blogroll, then click on a link in his blogroll, then click on a link in her blogroll…and keep clicking links until you find yourself someplace utterly strange. I do that a lot. I was hoping to come up with a cool name for this activity, but I failed.
I am also (you may have noticed) a gigantic consumer of Wikipedia (not everything hippies do is stupid). I frequent link collecting sites like Fazed and Portent. I keep a whole page of international newspaper links that I add to (and occasionally remove from).
Here’s the problem: I use Opera, the original tabbed browser. And I drink. And I leave my desktop machine on all the time. So when I come down most mornings, I am confronted with twenty cool open Web pages and no earthly idea how I got to any of them. I think it’s important to attribute stuff properly. But then, life is full of important things I don’t do.
So please, share some of my colorful balls of unknown provenance…
Did you know there was a Daily Photo Blog community? Here’s a map of current participants. I got in through Milano Daily Photo. Bath and Budapest were good, too. I only really got to the B’s before I began to skip around. Some are better about updating than others, but I enjoyed the lot of ’em.
I really love ideas like this. They feed my sick delusional yearning for godlike powers of vision and…eavesdropping. Oh, yeah, like you wouldn’t eavesdrop if you were a god.
And so continues our proven interest in all things deer anus — behold, the Butt Out Tool.
This tool is the fastest, easiest way to disconnect the anal alimentary canal from deer or similar-sized game. Immediately after harvesting game, insert the Butt-Out Tool into the anal canal and twist until it grabs the membrane. Continue twisting another half turn, then steadily pull the Butt-Out Tool out of the canal. Extract 10″ of membrane, tie the membrane off and cut.
There’s video. (I definitely got this one from Fazed).
This tattoo artist apparently specializes in bulldogs and serial killers. Okay, I don’t recognize that very last one, but the one before that is Albert Fish, Eater of Children, and the one before that is Richard Ramirez. Not just serial killers, but badly drawn, especially losery serial killers. Would it be better if these tats were all on one guy, or spread out among several scary people with bad taste? I can’t make up my mind.
This one’s almost a year old, so you’ve probably seen it if you’re into gaming. I’m not and I hadn’t. It’s 1K Project II, a thousand cars racing through a game called Trackmania. I tried a couple of different addresses for the kid who made it, in case he had any remarks, with no luck. Then I found a page explaining how he did it — in French. My French, she is not so good — but I gather he cut together multiple walkthroughs to achieve the effect. This explains why the cars seem to have collision detection in some cases and not in others.
It’s very well done and seriously cool. Sometimes they look like shoals of fish and sometimes flocks of birds and sometimes swarms of bugs and sometimes bitchin’ cars.
Finally, this guy: Tim Knowles. He’s an artist in London of the kind that does stupid shit like ink up pine trees and put paper under them and let them draw pictures in the breeze. I know, I know…I can’t help myself. I went to a poncy art school. They polluted my mind.
Like, check out this drawing, which was made by this huge seismography thing in the back of a station wagon on the way to its own exhibition. Or the slideshow he made by mailing a box rigged with a digital camera to take a picture of its journey every ten seconds for 6,994 pictures (sadly, the whole slideshow is not online). Or these surprisingly evocative pictures of the full moon reflected in water.
Or you could, you know, bite me.
— 4:36 pm
Comments: 10
Islamic Rage Boy: the interview
Look what JW found: an interview with Shakeel Bhat, the Islamic Rage Boy. Who is, in fact, 31 and a “full-time demonstrator” (how do you say “lives in moms’ basement” in…whatever dialect they speak in Kashmir?)
Apart from drawing ridicule from bloggers, Bhat has even inspired one American neoconservative website to push “Rage Boy” merchandise — including T-shirts, beer mugs, mouse pads.
“I don’t believe this! I have no knowledge about all this. Why do they do it?” demanded Bhat, who says he has no idea how to use a computer and the Internet. [You don’t say? – ed]
Bhat also shrugged off his rather unflattering “Rage Boy” nickname.
“I don’t need any titles. I am a simple Muslim. Yes, I get enraged if someone, somewhere makes derogatory remarks about our religion or Prophet,” he said.
“Titles”? I wonder if he thinks he’s being honored in some way. It would really mean a lot to me if I knew he knew we were laughing at him.
Update: Oooo! And look at the cool picture Dawn found. Which I might possibly have tweaked just a little teeny bit. How does one get a nostril injury, anyhow?
July 5, 2007 — 3:27 pm
Comments: 54
Farewell, Boots
Boots Randolph, who died in Nashville, Tennessee, on Tuesday aged 80, was the tenor saxophonist who made and co-composed the maddeningly catchy hit record Yakety Sax; after its first burst of pop success, the piece enjoyed a long second life as accompanying music to the manic chase routines in The Benny Hill Show.
Any guesses what they’ll play at the funeral?
— 11:21 am
Comments: 15