Ever wonder how the “other half” live?

Here are a few interesting excerpts from the book “We Are Amused: A Royal Miscellany” by Brian Hoey, published by JR Books.  The book details some of the quirks of the British Royal Family, but it wouldn’t be mentioned on S&B if there weren’t a few interesting nuggets:

• The Queen’s favorite drink is gin and Dubonnet (two-thirds gin to one-third Dubonnet) with ice added. But she doesn’t like the sound of ice cubes banging against each other, so Philip invented a clever device that turns them into tiny ice balls that rub gently together.
• When dining together, the Queen and Philip drink sweet German wine. He also enjoys a glass or two of Double ­Diamond beer (which, although it hasn’t been on sale to the public for years, is still available to the Ind Coop brewery’s royal fan).
• Princess Anne is teetotal — drinking orange juice or Coke at state functions.
• Charles prefers fish to meat. ­Nothing containing nuts is allowed on his table and he doesn’t care for chocolate puddings.
• As for her cuppa, the Queen likes a special blend made by R. Twining & Company with milk but no sugar; she uses a sweetener instead. Her husband prefers coffee, made by the Savoy Hotel coffee department.

Who knew the Queen was a gin person.  I’ll have to ask Simon if she had a flask of Beefeaters when we saw her in London

To me….this is being responsible ;)

Ok, the one missing element of this story is….DID THE POLICE CATCH THEM?

If it was just “Reported” and then the cops followed up with check at the home, then I the woman is an idiot for admitting anything.

Oh Well

Mom admits letting boy drive after she drank

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/offbeat/articles/2010/11/03/20101103nevada-mom-lets-boy-drive.html#ixzz14dAgWoJP

MINDEN, Nev. - A Nevada woman has admitted letting her 12-year-old son drive her car because she was drunk.

The Gardnerville Record-Courier reports 35-year-old Misty McCollister awaits sentencing Dec. 14. She pleaded guilty Tuesday to attempted child abuse or neglect.

McCollister was arrested Oct. 17 near her home after a witness reported seeing a car weaving in and out of its lane and varying its speed.

The witness told sheriff's deputies he passed the vehicle and saw a child in the driver's seat. Another woman and a 7-year-old child also were in the car.

McCollister told District Judge Dave Gamble that the other woman refused to drive because she didn't have her glasses, so she put her son on her lap so he could drive them home. She admitted to drinking all that weekend.

This day in History 11/6/1988

Beatle/boozehound Ringo Starr checks into an alcohol rehabilitation center. While many consider Ringo the least talented Beatle, he has shown exceptional acting ability in his "Atouk zug zug Lana" role (Caveman, 1981).

A Michelangelo-

"Ham saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren who were without. An Shem and Japeth took a garment, and laid it out upon both their shoulders, and went backward, covered the nakedness of their father, and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness."

Michelangelo evidently neglected the chronological sequence of the Noah series, for Noah's offering should have come directly after the Deluge. Instead, Noah asleep and mocked by his sons is the first fresco that meets the eye as one enters the Chapel through the east door. It occupies a small field between the four ignudi. But the sleeping Patriarch has surely been placed at the end of the first row of frescoes for some good reason. The degradation of the Patriarch, who resembles a Roman river god, and was yet chosen by God to outlive the Flood and ensure the survival and redemption of mankind, was due not to an overdose of wine but to human loss of spiritual memory; to the hypnotic sleep of man oblivious to his origin, enacted here by the father of the race. The sons who stripped and ridiculed him do not know what they are doing and understand neither themselves nor their fate. Noah's devotion and piety pacifies the Father and gives unto God what is God's. For his sake the Eternal has decided to redeem mankind. If the sons mock their father it is their own shame, not his; it is the fall and the inexorable karma of the race which men in their blindness neither see nor understand.

With this biblical motive Michelangelo gives us a blinding insight into his lifelong grief over the human condition. To see in his work nothing but a preoccupation with problems of composition is surely petty and short-sighted. These are self evident and he solved them as best he could, but his main concern was with mankind and his own soul.

The composition, top-heavy on the right, is not altogether a success. The unattractive way in which the face of the son on the extreme right is outlined is a relic of Quattrocento imprecision which the artist will soon discard. Too little emphasis is given to the motive of redemption symbolized by the Beloved of God digging his vineyard to the far left. The vat in the centre dominates the scene like a nightmare.

http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/m/michelan/3sistina/1genesis/1drunken/01_3ce1.html

Random Amsterdam Pics

 

I wanted to include some Smokes and Booze related pictures from Amsterdam.  These are just random pictures and have nothing to do with the reviews of places (such as FIRST BAR REVIEW, THE HEINEKIN EXPERIENCE, BOLS or THE ICE BAR), but just some neat stuff we saw in the city.

Feel free to check these out and click to embiggen.

Enjoy

Here are some cool beer and distillation stained glass windows-

 

The next shots are some of the people I was with.  The first is a shop we found while looking for “Sumo Sushi and Grill”, an all you can eat sushi place (where I ate 40 pieces for breakfast).  How could I pass up a picture of my lovely wife Debi and the Lampshade Horse?  What I thought was cool, not only does the horse have a lampshade on his head (I think all horses should), is that he is 1/2 in and 1/2 out of the shop.

So what happens when you have a group of people running around Amsterdam looking for a place to eat?  If you say that you stumble upon a huge wooden shoe, then you win a prize.  Here I am with Anthony mugging for the camera.  I think Debi has a better shot of this, if I find it…I will post.

 

 

….I don’t’ even want to know what Simon is up to here. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I bet you are wondering what the most overhyped thing in Amsterdam was….well here ya go – Heineken Extra Cold.  Basically you are getting Heineken as cold as you would get it anywhere in the US.  All marketing and no delivery.

 

Here is another “Dead F&#K” …the Vodka Museum.  This dump should not be confused with the Amsterdam Vodka Museum .  Instead, this is basically a store (not much of a museum) that has unique vodka imports and specialty bottles.  There is no Air Conditioning and the place was sweltering.  Considering how much Debi loves Vodka, I thought we would be in there for hours, instead….15 min later and we were out the door.  I can save you the time and show you the best thing in the place……The Machine Gun Bottle Set.

Greatly overpriced, it is still cool…..just not $250 cool.  By Red Army Vodka, I’m sure you could find this product somewhere on the internet much cheaper.

 

How could we pass up a bar named Getto?  Well, if we would have seen the Rainbow flag outside….we might have skipped it, but then I wouldn’t have gotten to try Jupiler Beer, “The Most Popular Beer in Belgium”. Jupiler is a 5% beer on par with Stella Artois.  It didn’t jump out at me, but it didn’t make me sick either…..so that is a plus.  The Barman here was really nice, and the lifestyle choices of the clientele was not up in your face…so if you were not paying attention, you wouldn’t notice.  It felt good to be in a place of open-mindedness and tolerance for a change….very relaxing.

Finally, every trip has an inside joke….and here was one of ours

Hope you enjoyed and please check back for other pics and stories from “The Trip”

Amsterdam–First bar review

The first bar I want to review was one we found our first day exploring. 

The Het Elfde Gebod of Amsterdam is located near the Centraal Station in Amsterdam and was right around the corner from our hotel.

 

A fairly unassuming and traditional looking bar (without the billowing smoke of marijuana flowing out), we decided to give it a try….especially as it literally opened as we walked by.  It was fate.

Inside was a clean and elegant (although somewhat small) bar that purported to have over 100 different kinds of beers, specializing it seemed in Belgium's.

I think Debi was in heaven.

 

I won’t go into reviewing every beer I drank (I would be here far to long), but I will say the selection was excellent and the barman definitely knew his beers (especially later when Anthony came in and they broke the Beer Bible).  I was particularly impressed that they had the specialized glass for each brew, and if I were going to pick a favorite, I would say the Guillotine . 

I know Debi made some friends there (she has pictures of them somewhere), and the good thing was it being local to our hotel….thus, when Simon and I actually had to work, we had a good meeting place fairly close.

If you are a small group, I would highly recommend this bar…..although to have full disclosure, I will include one negative story about this place. 

During the conference, after our evening event we decided to go out for a few more drinks.  I will let Simon describe the Pied Piper Scene of everyone waiting for me to go drinking, but for the time being lets just say I had 20 people ready to go.  Thinking I had the perfect spot scoped out, we headed to the “Gebold” only to be turned away at the door.  It appears they wanted to remain a local bar and not have a load of tourists come in.  To say that they lost a lot of money (and repeat biz from that particular group who then kept going to the “Piano Bar”) is an understatement.  There were some serious drinkers in that crowd, and I can only imagine an easy $2K for them that night (at least).  That being said, I still enjoyed the bar….and as I said, would highly recommend if you were in a small group.

Finally a post

I want to say sorry to everyone for not posting in such a long time.  It’s not due to lack of will or content…..but time.

Since the Amsterdam Trip (and I have tons of material from that) I have been really busy with the day job, so this has taken a backseat.

Things are starting to slow down again……so I thought I would start with this article I saw the other day-

Halloween Reveler Dressed As Breathalyzer Busted For Drunk Driving

In the most amusing meta moment from the Halloween police blotter, a Nebraska man dressed as a portable Breathalyzer machine was arrested for drunk driving.

Matthew Nieveen, 19, was busted early Monday for DUI and being a minor in possession of alcohol. Nieveen, pictured in the police photo (click to enlarge) at right, was collared after a Lincoln cop pulled over his Ford F-150 after the teenager was spotted driving erratically. Though cops identified Nieveen, they decided to black out his face in a photo snapped post-arrest.

Nieveen’s blood alcohol level was more than twice the state’s .08 limit (though he wasn’t supposed to be drinking in the first place). A search of his truck turned up a bottle of vodka and beer.

Last Halloween, an Ohio college student wearing a similar Breathalyzer costume was busted for drunk driving and underage drinking.