shaken not stirred

As some of you may know I want to make my next big hobby cocktail-making.

inb4 alco, cocktails are for fanciness and not for drunkness. If you get drunk off cocktails, two things: 1) They are not that strong 2) They are fucking expensive >=O
Did you know the cheapest thing I found was a bottle of white wine for like $3, which amounts to 7 standard drinks? Hopefully I just completed some of your university lives (Y)

Anyway mixing drinks doesn't come cheap. Need equipment and ingredients. Fingers crossed I get a good job in the holidays =O

Shopping List

Equipment Highest To Lowest priority, roughly
[x]Boston-style Cocktail Shaker
[ ]Lots of cocktail glasses
[ ]Lots of Highball glasses
[x]A few Old Fashioned glasses
[ ]Fruit Juicer (the hand squeezy ones for lemon and lime juice)
[x]Jigger (measuring device)
[ ]Zester + lemon/lime twist peeling thing
[x]Bar spoon
[ ]Ice Scoop
[x]Muddler
[ ]Very few shot glasses

Alcohol Highest to Lowest priority, roughly
[x](Absolut/Smirnoff) Vodka $40
[ ]Triple Sec $20
[ ](Bacardi) White Rum ~$37 (gold/dark as well if I feel like it)
[ ](Tanqueray) Gin $40
[ ](Jose Cuervo) Tequila (white, reposado maybe, for some) $40
[ ](Jim Beam) Bourbon $35
[x]Jack Daniels
[ ]Cointreau $45
[ ]Vermouth (Sweet+Dry) ~$13ea
[ ](Angostura) Bitters ~$17
[ ]Grenadine (non-alcoholic) $13
[ ]Blue/Orange Curacao $20
[ ](Kahlua/Tia Maria) Coffee Liqueur ~$30
[ ]Apple Schnapps $20-30
[ ]Peach Schnapps $20-30
[ ]Midori $24
[ ]Amaretto $40
[x]Baileys

It's going to take me forever to obtain all these, it totals to $500 if I get everything :L. Good thing is each bottle lasts for 20+ servings though. And some of the lowest priority ones are only used in one or two drinks anyway.

Fruit Juice
Tomato Juice (if I ever make a Bloody Mary) + Worcestershire Sauce, Tabasco sauce
Orange Juice
Coke, Sprite
Lotsa fucking cranberry juice
Grapefruit juice
Ice tea
Make my own syrup (sugar + hot water)
Make my own sweet/sour mix (sugar + lime juice + lemon juice)

Fruit Salad
Maraschino Cherries (can we get them at woolies... any bakers who know?)
Limes
Lemons
Apple
Pineapple

My intended repertoire

[ ]Daiquiri
[ ]Manhattan
[ ]Margarita
[ ]Martini
[ ]Old Fashioned
[ ]Black Russian
[ ]White Russian
[ ]Bloody Mary (ingredients are pretty gay)
[ ]Tom Collins
[ ]Screwdriver
[ ]Tequila Sunrise
[ ]Appletini
[ ]B52
[ ]Cosmopolitan
[x]Cuba Libre
[ ]Jack Daniel's Lynchburg Lemonade
[ ]Japanese Slipper
[ ]Kamikaze
[ ]Long Island Ice Tea
[ ]Mai Tai
[ ]Mojito
[x]Sea Breeze
[ ]Sex on the Beach
[x]Vodka Cranberry


Set for uni life =D
Tell me if there are any other popular cocktails that I have missed! I refuse to do Pina Colada though, the ingredients are too lame.
Once I'm decent I'll invite peoples over and I can serve you stuff to sip =D. But they can't be free forever because that would be UNSUSTAINABLE so I'll probably ask you people to bring a bottle of something each :L I'll work it out when/if I get to that stage.

mmm belongment

I was googling quotes for As You Like It

If anyone is considering tweaking the quotes in their essay, this site has been of colossal help for snagging those extra few lines by Jaques, etc.

What it does is it can list out all the lines said by one character, in one page. It's amazing! It's designed, I think, for stage productions where you are playing one character and you want to see your cues and etc. But we can appropriate it's intentions and do better in the HSC with it :L


Oh yes and if you're doing the other English set, here is Hamlet that Max kindly reminded me of :L

misled on meds

Holy crap this is actually pretty intense.

1) This implies that doctors spend their free time reading up research reports on the medicines they are prescribing

2) The reports are cherry picked so that positive results are biased over negatives. Which means pharmacology is potentially a load of bullshit.


It's actually pretty terrible. So we have to question EVERYTHING WE READDD!!!

mother of scotch

I was looking through duty free to see how much alcohol is taxed. (It's like 30c per standard drink for Baileys, about 50c per drink for Kahlua, vodka and Jack Daniels, and fucking 1 whole dollar for drinks like Cointreau. What the |fuck|?!?!)
Then I saw this monster of a bottle. A 4.5L of Chivas scotch.

That requires 2 full adults to bring into Australia tax-free.

If you had one drink every day, that bottle will last 150 days.

Imagine trying to pour just one drink out of that bottle anyway. It weighs more than freaking 4 kilos. When the bottle is full its likely that you'll need to enlist help.

And your recycling bin is fucked for the week that you decide to throw away your empty bottle.

dragging the chain

I was chatting today and I was suddenly reminded of the fact that I have had recurring dreams the past few nights.

I'm on a basketball court. It was a pretty important looking court, must be the Australian equivalent of NBA or something.
But I suck dick (as in, as much dick as I do atm). I distinctly recall shooting an air ball, and another time losing control while dribbling ahaha.

But for some reason I never get subbed off. They just don't pass to me that often, and if they do, they don't expect too much.

So bizarre.

words

If a girl is called butch for being like a guy

And a guy is called a pussy/pansy for being like a girl


Why is it that both of these insults more derogatory to a woman than it is for a man?!

iOS6 for Australia

Including:
Siri for Australia
Maps for Australia

First of all, Siri finally works in Australia! Where's the nearest Maccas? Brings up a list. How do I get to Town Hall? Boots up the Maps app.
It pretty much achieves in Australia what it achieved in America in iOS5. What was meant to be new to Siri this time? Like... sports scores or something. Apparently ManU smashed Wigan 4-0 last Sunday in the EPL (Y). But it couldn't tell me the results of the last Bulldogs game, so limited Australian shits given. Fortunately I don't want to ask Siri for sports scores.

The Maps app isn't as bad as made out to be (in Sydney, at least). The flyover view is pretty useless but it seemed to work okay for Sydney CBD. My local residential area appears flat (just like google maps) but I'm not about to complain about that.
The directions seem to work as usual. Search function doesn't seem any less powerful.
When you search a restaurant, some of them have a slideshow of pictures that come from ??? but are a really nice touch)
What we are sorely missing is traffic data and OMG STREET VIEW =(.


Overall a pretty big leap for Australian Siri users, and Apple maps are a slightly less polished version of Google Maps but still very much so functional.

quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

A couple of weeks ago, when it was election time, I commented that it sucks that we can only turn to humans to govern other humans.

It would be better if there's a being that can see the world on a macroscopic scale and can hence create the most positive outcome possible.

Upon reflection that sounds a lot like what religion is meant to be except that a) not everyone believes in the same shit b) of the people who appear to believe the same shit, they don't actually believe the same shit c) nobody is getting any instructions, and if anyone is, they have a hard time convincing anyone else.


Also I would like to clarify that I am not a common drunkard :L. I have merely taken an interest in tasting everything and don't intend on getting wasted often ahaha.
For example, drizzling Jack Daniels over yoghurt tastes pretty good =D. But that was like 1/4 of a drink because it's taste > alcohol.
I mentioned before that 50% V and 50% apple juice tastes awesome. Can't imagine vodka tasting bad in that.
Also can't imagine vodka tasting bad when mixed in with a Slurpee.

On that note, vodka doesn't freeze, and gets to like -15 degrees. And it insta-freezes any condensation from your breath ;D. I tried making a vodka gummy but I only had a 2nd grade pack of gummies and it turned out terrible. Must buy Starbursts next time.


OKAY JOKES THAT STUFF WAS A DRAFT FROM A FEW DAYS AGO. I just wanted to post it.

Times to talk about graduation.
The ram is fucking awesome.
We've only got 4 weeks until the HSC, then we have 4 months of bullshit.
There is no place for sentiment here but I especially enjoy the consistently obnoxious groups that I have a penchant for joining: Meatloaf and the legendary English table :L. Times were had and they were good ;D
I wonder if the juniors will actually miss us. I wonder if the teachers are secretly relieved that they are rid of us :L.
I am currently trying to work out who I might never see again :O. It's an odd thought in this world of uber technology. But everyone knows eventually we just can't be fucked. Oh well we got Skype and MSN and SMS, hopefully we can contact who we want when we get bored.

Okay I'm done.

which came first

Something I don't really get
Which came first, chicken or the egg?
Do scientists actually discuss this shit? Because I swear I can solve it with junior high school knowledge.

The answer is the egg (by evolution)
The answer is chicken (by creationism)

Assumptions from evolution
1) Variations naturally occur in a population.
2) Mutations that will pass onto the child occur in the gametes (e.g. Down syndrome), and not those that affect the adult during his/her lifetime (e.g. lung cancer)
3) Eggs (not necessarily from chickens) existed a long time before the first chicken walked the Earth (various reptiles and birds).

It can be concluded from 2) and 4) that an egg was sitting there, and it hatched into what can be recognised as a chicken. 1) warrants the existence of variation (that doesn't deviate too much from the parent, but has appreciable differences).
By pure logic a duck did not go super-saiyan and turn into a chicken.
The only possible route is non-chicken-parent-bird -> egg -> first bird than can reproduce with the modern chicken.
Like this argument is actually dumb.

However by creationism God made everything and on the 76th (ty Marcus) day he made man. So that really solves stuff quickly too.

Either way, whether you put your money on science or the Old Testament, there's a quick answer.

This is like the time I got mad about comparing apples and oranges. There is nothing easier to compare.

full circle

Today I managed to buy Baileys. I quite enjoy the taste but I don't think I could have a shot's worth of that stuff, it's so rich and feels like drinking cream.

Also today I had the best time. I took a train trip from Carlingford to Camellia in order to visit the Hooters there to purchase some merchandise. Then I took the M91 to Parra Interchange where I got off and used my Debit Mastercard for the first time since I got it! This is also where I got the Baileys but I didn't use my card for that.

Then took the M54 back home so I could get home in time so that we can all go out and eat dinner after dropping my brother off.

You see, today my brother had an end of season celebration. In the morning he went laser tag with the team, and at night they were eating out.

Now nobody told me he was eating at Hooters.

That was like 3 hours of my day gone.

Also today in the morning before all this, we went out to vote. For like, the local council or some shit like that. The AEC managed to fuck my enrolment up so that I wasn't on paper, nor was I on the PDA things the election officials had, but the internet says with a big tick "enrolment confirmed". So that dicked stuff up yay. I spent about 7 minutes in there longer than I predicted, filling out a new form while the girl helping me was laughing at how retarded my situation is.

Then we like drove out and then we stopped at a red light and like the car behind us rammed into us.

When we got out we were like, wow there's a car rammed into the car that rammed into us.

That's like #raminception or #hashtaghashtaginception

It was also uphill, I'd estimate it was about a 15 degree incline. So that's a lot of momentum in that first car.

Also TIL when there is significant damage to a car in any accident you can call the cops on 000. But we all drove away before the cops came and I'm pretty sure nobody told the cops we were leaving lolol. 

I was about to take a photo and put a shitty filter on it and post it on Instagram then realised that it was slightly inappropriate. So I didn't.

Just in case any of you people have a heart and shit, nobody got hurt and the bumpers took most of the force  (Y).

Also I shall publish my optimum ratios for the two highballs that I've tried.

Jack and Coke: 5-7 parts Coke, 1 part Jack Daniels

Whisky (Jack Daniels again lol) on the rocks: 30mL whiskey with 2 ice cubes, drink while ice cubes are melted to about half their original size.

Rum and Coke: 3 parts Coke, 1 part rum

I know, my repertoire is fucking huge. Dw dw it will grow steadily 

snap crackle pop

I like it when ice cubes are frozen clear
And then I put them in the cup
When I pour room-temperature water over the cubes
The outside expands faster than the inside
And it stresses and finally cracks
Millions of microfractures spidering underneath the surface
With a small pop the ice cube changes from clear to cloudy


Fully sick line breaks make it feel like bad poetry.


Also I found out via Twitter that we are all like voting tomorrow for our local reps and stuff.

Oh well at least it makes absolutely zero difference who the hell our local council is. I have zero ideas who the current mayor(correct title?) is for Parra. Hektik.

placebo/nocebo

I am here to post what I think alcohol does to inhibitions.

I personally don't think alcohol could persuade me to do things I wouldn't do for x amount of dollars while sober.

A conservative estimate for the value of $x is 1 drink = $5, 2 drinks = $10, 3 drinks = $20, 4 drinks = $40, etc.
The empirical formula is $X = 5*2^(n-1), where n is number of drinks had, n>0. I will be watching out for this in the future, and you should too so you can contribute to my hectic data ;D

I derno I'd like to collect other's opinions about just how stupid alcohol makes you. Like could you ever go "drunken rage" and bash people if you didn't, deep down, actually feel like bashing said people? I've seen FMLs of people who have impulse bought lots of stupid shit online while drunk, but ???. Must experiment more with how effective alcohol is.

Alcohol probably wouldn't be able to convince me to do something that I knew, deepset in my morals, was bad for me, e.g. getting behind the wheel. Though I haven't had too much experience with that and I will keep you updated in case I ever do :L

So far it seems like the first symptom is talking louder and with more confidence, then it's laughing and general euphoria, then it's the need to piss, then after that it's feeling that cognitive function is greatly reduced and balance is somewhat off (as if brain felt liquidy and shouldn't be swished ahaha), then quite intense short term memory loss (anecdote: I put Max's soju in my bag and managed to forget about it 6 times, eventually taking it home with me T.T). I also had some trouble following sentences that were longer than 10 seconds in duration. I'm guessing next is loss of ability to walk, actual memory blackout (despite short term memory loss at the time, I can still remember what happened that night), and then the hectic stuff like passing out and stuffz.

Of course once you've drunk enough to pass out, no amount of money can justify being ducttaped to the window.

Here are some facts that I know will be useful to some, as they make the transition from underage to "I can buy my own beer".
On an empty stomach, 20% ABV is the most quickly absorbed. On an empty stomach, 40% ABV (ie most spirits) is a better idea than 20% ABV (liqueurs like Baileys or wine). On all bottles, you should find both an ABV statement and a standard drink counter. If you're at a restaurant you can ask the bartender if you don't fear sounding like a pansy.
On a full stomach, 40% ABV gets diluted and hence is more likely to get you drunk.
After feeling drunk, it's important to boost water levels with non-alcoholic drinks like coke or water, because the metabolism of alcohol in the liver is very dehydrating. Part of the hangover is terrible dehydration.
Drinking many different types of drinks will more likely give you a hangover. I think it overloads the liver and it just ragequits and poisons the fuck out of you. So be nice to your liver, and streamline the processing process lol. Also cheap liquor that you bought for $3 a bottle will probably not be that good for you tomorrow morning, seeing as they can't be fucked distilling it, and probably do something shoddy like decanting the alcohol LOL.
To calculate the number of standard drinks, look at ABV (alcohol by volume). Lets say we have a 700mL bottle of Smirnoff. For vodka lets say it's 40%. So we have 40% * 700mL = 280mL of alcohol. But alcohol is .789g/mL, so 280*.789 = 220.92. One standard drink is defined as 10g of ethanol, so divide that by 10, you have 22.092 standard drinks in that bottle. Fulleh sick now you can count drinks ohoho. A standard drink is also the amount of alcohol you should be able to metabolise in 1 hour.
Each drink will raise your BAC by ~0.025. So each drink = +0.025, and each hour since your first drink = -0.025. As a guideline, the legal limit for full drivers license holders is 0.05 BAC. Of course it's different for each person, if you're skinnier and/or shorter than an average man, then adjust accordingly (Y).

Btw when I say "each drink" in this post I mean "each standard drink".

sort-of advice

The other day I read about penile fractures because Reddit got me thinking that way. (Yeah, click here to skip the penis stuff if you're squeamish)

This can only happen when erect, and involves the rupturing of erectile tissue, and causes immediate flaccidity, pain, and bruise-like appearance on the penis.

It is also a medical emergency, which requires surgical attention.

Now there is one key rule to preventing this unfortunate predicament is just to not bend the penis in stupid ways.

This means that joining the mile high club isn't so smart because sooner or later the dick is gonna bend sideways and possibly end in nasty.
Also avoid reverse cowgirl. I shall explain why, because apparently it is a mystery to some that both the vagina and penis have a slight curve to them. When you put those curves in opposing directions a dick is going to snap.

Which reminds me of how ducks have this hectic anti rape thing. I think firstly the females developed a convoluted so that the males would have more trouble forcefully copulating with them. Then the males develop a screwdriver penis so that they can get deeper in. Then the females develop spiral vaginas that curl the other way. Then the males learn how to shoot their dick and literally pop a boner (see from article above), and the females develop false dead ends in their vaginas to stop the males short.
So on and so forth it's like fucked up Lamarckism and it makes no sense why ducks have managed to survive so long as a species if so much of their energy is spent on making elaborate dick traps and even more elaborate dick guns.
You only have to watch the slow motion videos from that link above to see what I'm talking about.


Back to the non-dicks

I would like to deliver a PSA to people who cannot be fucked reading things properly. Which includes everyone right now graduating with Red laptops who thinks they can use Adobe wherever the hell they like.

Firstly you can get your copy of Microsoft Office without graduating your laptop, because your student numbers are already in the system.
Use your 431... number and register and then you can download each of Microsoft Office for Windows 2010, Office for Mac 2011, and Windows 7 Ultimate.
Go to http://nsw.dec.onthehub.com/ to claim your spoils.
It's a good idea to take a screenshot or copypaste the serials into a text doc because if you don't use the serials within 30 days it's gone from the NSWDEC server and you can never retrieve it again.
If you, for some reason, want to license the Office on your red laptop, you do not need to download the program files. After you've graduated your laptop, if you try to open Office it will just tell you to try to plug in a serial (which you will have!!!)
If you are over that red piece of junk, and are installing it on your own computer, you obviously need to download the program files for Office 2010 (removing any other installs of older Offices if applicable).
Obviously you should all snap up Office for Windows, but I also recommend taking an Office for Mac just in case you wanna go hipster. And a Windows Ultimate in case you get a new machine with no OS.

I'd also like to point out that you don't get to use Adobe. What I mean by that is that
1) You do not get a license key that you can use on your home computer
2) Good luck opening, let alone rendering with, Adobe products on the shitty Red laptop.
If you read the license agreement you would find the line "You will have access to using the Adobe software on your DER-NSW Lenovo, IdeaPad S10e laptop only". Please, I do not want to hear another person tell me otherwise.
I shall summarise here. You get one license key for each of the Microsoft Products, of which you may use each serial only once.
You get the Adobe WebPremium CS fully licensed upon graduating. Fulleh sick.
And I knew I did not misquote the prices for Adobe. To buy your first license for CS6 (as in, not upgrading from CS5), Photoshop by itself is a whopping $1168, and the Master Collection is $4344. How the hell do people afford that shit that actually costs as much as an old second-hand car.

Oh oh random addition. Keep an eye out on these two products when you are in Uni.
Microsoft Dreamspark (Most Australia Unis are subscribed to Dreamspark Premium) tbh I forgot why this excited me before but it's a shittonne of free programs, and includes Microsoft Maths, which could come in handy
Microsoft Office University has all the Office programs that Home and Business has. The key can be used on 2 machines. It is only $99 (compare to price of Home&Business, which is $379 for 2 machines)