Or make friends with doctors. And lawyers. And cops. And government licensing officials. And (my favorite) DMV supervisors. And by "make friends" I mean "buy drinks."
A friend of mine had a rescue dog. She had been used to hunt rats and she was a scared little creature, always trembling and nervous around people. Except me. Every time I visited, she clambered over the furniture in order to get into my lap, where she would plonk herself down and fall asleep. She also had white fur, which isn't ideal when you're wearing black.
The 2013 film Lovelace is not about the 19th century mathematician! But seriously... well, nothing explicit but still going to spoiler-wrap it because it deals with the content of the film: Spoiler In keeping with Japanese law (not really a law, but) the scenes in which people watching adult films have the films censored out, so everyone in the party appears to be watching a blank white projector screen, like the film hasn't started yet and nobody noticed. Likewise with the scene where Chuck Traynor shows off a home movie of Linda's special talent. In her first scene with Harry Reems, they put a huge black censorship blob over her head even when seen from behind, to prevent audiences who signed up for an adult film from being shocked by the sight of a head bobbing up and down. Now, I know where to find the original with a few clicks, I'm not dying for lack of adult entertainment, but Japanese law and custom are really weird. They have an absolute ban on showing the bottom naughty bits, but on one of the main streets of Osaka there are numerous adult video shops with full-color posters of topless women in the window. Not coy "topless but from the back" a la Hayden Panattiere, but "here's Yuki and her 8008s!" And some of the fare that is legal here I'm not even going to discuss in code. But no human naughty bits, oh no! I'm sure that the producers/director of Lovelace chose their fare very carefully to let the audience know that what the cast were watching was NSFW without actually crossing into NC-17 territory. Likewise with Amanda Seyfried's portrayal of the titular character's skills; it's not The Brown Bunny. But the Land of the Rising Sun, where it took 30 years to approve the Pill and 30 seconds to approve Viagra? Yeah, no appreciation for art. Rant over.
Things that annoy me but shouldn't: returning to work after some time off. I don't mind being at work or the work I do (I like my day job), but I hate getting going in the morning. To say I am not a morning person is to understate the situation.
Sales down to nearly zero now that it's winter. But whiskey and red wine are up, up, up! Which sucks ass because whiskey and red wine are expensive while gin is dirt cheap, so gross profit is down, down, down!
On facebook (where else) an American Chinese lady who lives in California, would like me (an Englishman) to know that my use of English slang isn't authentic for a street kid living in London... its not just men who 'mansplain'
maybe introduce a line of Gin Toddys and winter warmers (there's a bar in London I used to go to when i was still drinking that doesn't serve anything apart from gin based drinks...they used to sell no end of gin toddy to the tourist market when it was chuffin' freezing outside.) In case it doesn't translate across the pond I'm talking about this https://www.thespruceeats.com/hot-gin-toddy-recipe-760085
Yeah, that definitely isn't going to translate across the pond. Gin seems to be stuck in its little hipster niche over here, and I stopped marketing to hipsters a long time ago. They don't spend money and never seem to vacate the bar stools to those who will. And if a spirit can't earn its margin in shot format--like whiskey and tequila--or at least in a 1.5 mixer format, it bleeds the profit out of beverage. Actually, I don't think gin knows how to market itself. And neither do its distributors. It has some success in creative mixology, but only if the drink isn't too gin-y. One of those things that people only seem to like if it doesn't taste like itself. Weird. Maybe 2023 is gin's year. They've been predicting it for a decade now.
Gin has a strong British association, mostly with the RN, it was used to sterilize water, and an antiseptic, and with lemon juice as a preventative against scurvy, also G&T was a big thing in the army throughout the Empire because proper tonic water has quinine which is a preventative/treatment for malaria. For a long while British ships were required by law to have gin on board and gin kits were provided on commissioning. Course it maybe that the strong british connection works against it in the states in the same way that tea is nowhere near as popular I don't drink any more, but back in forces days it was near mandatory for officers to have a few G&Ts in the mess before dinner.
I associate gin and tonic with my parent's generation and movies from the 50's or 60's. Walter Matthau and Jack Lemon in a mod 60's bar where everybody is dressed in suits and nice dresses and has cocktails and there's soft jazz playing. Today in the states (probably more a few years or a decade back) you hear about gin and juice in a lot of rap songs.
Given rap's rather unfortunate attitude to women, that maybe because Gin is popular with the sort of skeazy creep who wants to get a girl drunk without her knowledge or consent, its very hard to detect a shot of Gin in a highly flavored juice drink, its also hard to detect in other alcohols, so it is unfortunately popular with creepers and spikers everywhere
The Time All My Books Sell: January Try The Antelope Meat Broiled Slightly: January Tik Tok And Meta Both Suck: January
We have a winner, folks. Current pet peeve: people who say some version of, "I don't know anything about that situation," and follow with unsolicited and detailed suggestions on how one should deal with said situation.
I know someone who's go-to line is "Yeah I don't know, it just seems like..." It's actually his way of bypassing the fully reasonable argument you just made so he can spout more gibberish. And it usually involves some mixture of Bigfoot, Atlantis, and the giant hole at the South Pole "They" are keeping secret.
News websites that present you with a list of stories and when you click on one and read it, and click back to the list, it's changed and another story you wanted to read isn't there any more.
