I quit the booze.. ... fat belly and age are ingredients for permanent horizontal position it goes, in present crises...

 

this is a fave. love it.

 

Obviously i don't speak Japanese! You're are correct. Thanks! =) And East to West at 6am, you might be able to do it. lol

 

I knew I should have gotten into this conversation earlier, and I missed out on the whiskey topic. I am no aficionado by any stretch of the imagination, but I know that I acquired a taste for it over the years. It's not something I drink everyday, but I have been collecting different samples ever since my first bottle of Macallan when I was in England in 2003.

As for the food situation, I am going to have to teach my teenage boys how to start hunting for squirrels and how to cook them. The food they go through is unreal. WTF

 

I had a bottle of cask strength '74 Macallan I nursed for a few years but finally killed it off a couple of years ago. I looked to see what a replacement would cost. It was still available, but at quadruple what I paid. Sigh.

Brunswick Stew!

 

Covid-19 supposedly is only affected by 80% alcohol, and most versions are only 40 % (80 proof). Being the adaptable person that I am, I always have 2 shots, maybe 4, just to be well protected.....

 

I started a shopping cart on Total Wine last night. Need to get more wine and spirits for my isolation.....er, I mean social hours at home.

 

Short version of a long story: My brother and I are in a tiny town in Minnesota helping my parents get into their new house. If all goes well, we come home tomorrow. Heading across country was a little eiry (we flew his plane). There was so little air traffic. I've never had more helpful Air Traffic Controllers as they seemed excited for something to do.

 

Samthesham,
I can fix your 40% alcohol issue more easily than the double shot. Tonight begins Passover for me and typically we would be having 20-25 guests and family, but Covid 19 has changed that to just me and my wife. Traditionally, at the end of the meal we take a shot of good Czech Republic Slivovitz, 100 proof, 50% alcohol, it'll burn barnacles off the bottom of a boat. It'll kill anything on its way down. I like Jelinek Gold as it's a drop smoother than the regular.

Be Safe.

 

I'm sure that was eerie. It's like going out for a drive during a major holiday when everything is closed. Very little traffic means very few idiots on the road. It's kind of calming.

 

It reminds me of a Willem Defoe story in a Fishing with John episode.... "Didn't spoil the meat thoooooo" lol

Also, booze. Our county drinks the most per capita in the country, and the bay area is getting hammered: https://sfist.com/2020/03/31/shockin...lter-in-place/

A Californian in Scotland came home to visit and brought me this very interesting, not "spendy" ($50) but certainly rare "IPA experiment":
https://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/p/...imental-series




And how about not drinking... but here was our Sunday drive that I flubbed the dashcam video of. Not sure how that happened, so I have to do it again!

 

When the Superbowl was at Levi Stadium in Santa Clara, the entirety of the bay area was shut in, and we drove through and around Napa. Nary a car on the road, the wineries were thrilled to have us, and it was one of the most enjoyable drives we've taken. Now Super Bowl Sunday is road trip and picnic day. =)

 

I've given up religion for lent, but that's likely because my people were gypsies running cons in misty forest of Bohemia. I'm 3rd generation, but my granddad left prior to World War 1 as a kiddo, and grew up in East St. Louis before becoming a farmer in Oregon.
He would legit fight people that called him Czech. "NO. BOHEMIA!". But I am just partial to the spirits and music of the land, and I'll take whatever I can get from a fellow countrymen.
Na zdraví!!

 

Uncle Fishbits,
If you gave up religion for lent, it means you at least had it. Passover is my favorite 8 days of the year as if you observe, the dietary restrictions force you to live your life differently for a week, and I enjoy that and find I eat better than any other time during the year. And this year, the rituals regarding the ten plagues brought upon Egyptians take on a whole new meaning. As the eldest child of two Concentration Camp survivors I also take the lessons of the Egyptian Exodus as a valuable history lesson. If you like, send me your address, and I'll send you a bottle of the Slivovitz to try. I've always got a couple laying around.

Stay safe.

 

I've heard that you try to have "a little Slivovitz" you'll learn that there is no such thing as a little. I've got some homemade rakija that was hand carried from Macedonia in a Pepsi bottle. It's surprisingly smooth. I've also got some Moutai that is genuinely dreadful. It's the good stuff, as seen on the banquet table when Nixon went to China. The only spirit I've had that's worse is Wuliangye. I had one shot in the afternoon, but could still taste it the next day. Bleh.

 

I really like the barrel aged brews coming from Firestone-Walker.

As for that drive, I heartily endorse it, although I'd have probably taken a turn to go through Pt. Reyes Station. There's Osteria Stellina, plus the grocery that carries Cowgirl Creamery, and just out of town to the north is Heidrun Meaderie.

 

I certainly shared mass quantities of Slivovitz with a crusty old Serbian steelworker that was a close friend of mine. It was the best entertainment I could find in East Chicago when I worked there about 35 years ago. What an armpit!

 

I was in Malmberget [Sweden] early 80-ties, for a training period with LKAB [ mining company]. We brought beer, wine, whisky and Austrian Rhum. Before we went I wrote a letter to the Swedish consulate,
asking what the legal quantities were to bring into Sweden, since alcohol was severely taxed. The reply was 8 liters of beer, AND 6 liters of wine AND 4 liters of distilled over 30 percent... ... we were two students.
Of course this should have been "OR/OR".. (I'm not sure anymore about the exact quantities, could have been 4/3/2 Liters.. .. it is almost 40 years ago.. ..and lots of alcohol later ).

You can imagine the boot of the car looked like a liquor store ! So when w came of the ferry to Sweden, a grumpy customs officer with a dog asked if we had anything to declare, we did not, He was expecting drugs :
students + Netherlands = drugs, also in those days. So we opened the trunk when he asked and his eyes lit up and he said "what is that" . We told the quantities we had with us, and he said that he was to impound
everything and if we did not make any fuzz we would not go to jail... ..then I showed him the letter. The shear oblivion in his eyes, disbelieve, I will never forget. He did not say anything anymore but "OK, GO !! "..

You can imagine this story was a "hit" on every party we went after that. Once we went out with some colleagues. First to the local sauna, drinking the cheap 1,5% "Folköl" [ people's beer]. Then we went to our place
for some heavy Belgian beer and good Scottish whisky... ..one of the guys was the driver, he did not drink any alcohol. Then we went to another guys house. I remember there was a full bottle of home distilled on the
table, empty when we left. About five liters. Danger is : you drink it like water. After a while you don't taste the alcohol. After this my memory becomes vague. I do know I wondered why people were dancing on the
ceiling.. .. that was since I was on a table to drunk to walk, with my head hanging down over the edge.. ..then a big blank. Until I woke up the next morning in bed with the ugliest girl I have ever seen in my life !

Since then I never became that drunk again...

 

Our mad sprint home was delayed by snow, so we'll try tomorrow.

Sidenote: I heard someone took advantage of the reduced traffic on the roads to break the Cannonball Run record.

 

There's another cross-country race which is not in my memory at the moment. What is in my memory is the photo this week of the "host / sponsor" racing on the deserted streets in the Big Apple, where he crashed his Porsche Supercar badly, and still tried to drive away -- without success! Dope.
Safe trip, Vik!