Current Mood:
Happy
If you’ve been paying attention, then you’ve already read about Char’s blog about Friday evening; dinner at Roses, followed by finding our cheap-as-hell vodka up on Alpine, the Eastown Hookah Lounge, with a final hurray at The Intersection with North Mississippi All-Stars. It was a rockin’ good time. I’ve posted some blurry phone pics in the gallery for your enjoyment.
The hookah really dropped my blood pressure a lot. I’m seriously considering this as a therapeutic sort of deal, but only every once in a while. The shisha has some tobacco in it (far less baddies than cigarettes, but enough to still be a concern). For most all of Saturday, I was really relaxed though. It felt good to be chill for a little bit.
So on to a quick review of the vodka. We picked up the elusive, bottom-of-the-crap-pile Burnett’s, in Watermelon, Coconut, and Grape (yes… glorius grape kool aid flavor). The grape was workable when mixed up with Sprite… the good news here is that while it is still pretty sweet, the vodka cuts the sicky sweet of the Sprite, so that’s a good thing. It really tastes like one of those purple freeze pops… it’s kinda crazy. The grape tastes a lot better than it smells.
The coconut flavor was pretty useful mixed with tropical juice and creme de cacao. I added a little amaretto for that almost complete Almond Joy taste. Add a little soda and now it’s fizzy for ya. It has a little bite to it, but it’s not the worst liquor I’ve ever had. It’s no Grey Goose or even Effen, but it’s still pretty ok… cheaper than Smirnoff and arguably just as good (or bad depending on what you’re after).
I’m not quite sure what to do with the watermelon. I tried a watermelon martini (trying hard to cover up the funkiness of the bottom-shelf swill). It didn’t work out so well. I’ll have to try harder… perhaps some melon liqueur is what’s needed to make it really snap. We’ll see. I didn’t have any at the time, so we’ll have to wait until next time.
The North Mississippi All-Stars show was fantastic. They are one of my favourite bands around and play rotten-to-the-core electric blues that just oozes history and is mixed with a fair amount of funk and jazz. Luther is a simply amazing guitarist. Chris Chew is probably the hardest working bassman in the business. He’s also completely amazing. The big thing about these folks is that they are all highly talented folks who play very very well together.
At one point, I went up front. If anyone was paying attention, they would have seen a 30 year old, overweight pony-tailed dude standing there with his mouth half open staring in amazement. Yes… they were that good. One of my favourite shows of late… hands down. I highly recommend seeing them if you get the chance.
For the most part, the rest of the weekend has been pretty chill. My folks lost power, so Clare’s trip down south was delayed until today. Char and I delivered her into the capable hands of the parents, relieving us for a couple of days. We stopped by Harbor Freight and bought some tarps and other junk we needed around the house. We’re planning on converting our back porch into a temporary storage space for the office crap and need to keep the rain off.
After that, we headed to Home Depot to pick up some other junk (and use the gift cards we had lying about). Now… as is usual, we are chilling, watching some TV before bed. In the morning, the ratrace begins again.
Mischievous
Our good friends at Smirnoff recently released a white grape flavored vodka that has become one of my favorite flavors so far. There seems to be some infatuation with the non-sweet flavored vodkas at the eastowners’. Thankfully, our escapades are numerous, frequent and prolific, so we have lots of opportunity to sample a wide range.
Tired or Sleepy
Getting Loaded
First up, the jello shots. We made several flavors this year, with some new things. The permeation of flavoured vodkas have really helped out with making drinks (and jello shots) more interesting without the use of additional sugary liqueurs.
Lovey
Cool & 
Loopy
Sleepblogging
