Hell. Yes.

Posted by at 3:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

For years, I've wanted to cultivate some sort of affected interest in a liquor of some sort, but the truth of the matter is this: most liquor, even the good stuff, tastes like ass, butane, or butane-laced ass. And being into clear liquors doesn't count. Maybe gin, I suppose, but then you just seem like a teenage girl or an old drunk. But really, the poseur's liquor of choice needs to be brown.

Scotch tastes like vodka filtered through cow dung. Irish whiskey (sorry, Dad) is straight-up lighter fluid with caramel coloring. Canadian whiskey reminds me of my grandfather, but it tastes like the bastard child of Irish whiskey and Diet Coke. So much for my whiskey fetish, right?

Wrong! Last night, my friend Pattycake Butler was passing through town, taking the long route from Oxford Business School to Connecticut, and we had a few drinks. Deciding to give my whiskey dream one last shot at greatness, I asked what kind of bourbon they had, and I settled on a bottle of 1996 Evan Williams Single Barrel. Don't let the review fool you--it was nothing like scotch, or at the very least, the corn balanced out the typical Scotchy sheep-vomit taste. Whatever the reasons, it tasted completely unlike the Jack-Daniels-in-a-Diet-Pepsi-can that kicked off my drinking life, and it gave me hope that I can find some other, better, single-barrel snooty bourbons out there worth drinking, even when I'm not planning on getting hammered. Because that will save me from being the "metro wine guy."

At some point, I suppose I'll have to learn to move into a plantation house, start raising horses, spend a lot of time on a porch drinking lemonade, and learn to play my banjo (or hire someone else to), but that's all somewhere down the line. For now, I'm going to kick it with my Kentucky Spirit Guide™ and do some serious drankin' research. Yee-haw for the Commonwealth!

Posted by at 2:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm not much for superstition, but I'm all for bragging, and bragging is easier when you can prove you've exceeded expectations. Even when they're your own. I'm also a big fan of guilt, shame, and fear as motivational tools. So for all these reasons and more, welcome to this year's edition of Cormac's New Year's Resolutions for a 12-Month Span Roughly Equivalent to 2008!

First up, this year(ish): fitness.

I've let things slide a bit in the last 12 months. Quite a bit, actually, so just getting back to where I was will do.

1. Weight: 165 or less
2. Bench Press: 210+
3. Mile: 5:45

Here's the trick: I have to hit all three targets in the same week. The mile, actually, will be the toughest one for me. I am just not a fast runner at all. And yeah, I know 5:45 isn't exactly speedy, but "baby steps," people. Baby steps.

While I'm at it, let's throw in:

4. Hand stand

Just because.

Moving on, a very conservative target:

5. 6 open chords on the guitar

That should be enough to establish a baseline so I can get interested enough to keep playing. Also on the creative tip, but somewhat less conservative:

6a. One full-length play, submitted to a festival or workshop

or

6b. One pilot, submitted to the person to whom you submit pilots

plus

7a. Three short stories, submitted to journals / magazines

or

7b. One novel, submitted to a publisher of some sort

That's it for now. We'll see how that goes. Updates coming in a month or so.

Posted by at 7:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Stability results were high which suggests you are very relaxed, calm, secure, and optimistic..

Orderliness results were low which suggests you are overly flexible, improvised, and fun seeking at the expense too often of reliability, work ethic, and long term accomplishment.

Extraversion results were very high which suggests you are overly talkative, outgoing, sociable and interacting at the expense too often of developing your own individual interests and internally based identity.

Posted by at 8:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)