Cocktail Sundays: The Redhead

Oh, look! A new series!
First of all, you can blame any and all cocktail shenanigans, at least the shenanigans on my blog, on The Armchair Squid. If hadn't started posting his cocktail experiments on his blog, I wouldn't be posting these. In all honesty, I'm not sure if I would have gotten as into cocktails as I have. But he started posting stuff, which prompted me to mention those to my wife from time to time, which generated interest, which may have been what lead to that first book I mentioned in my Smuggler's Cove non-review review, and that book certainly lead to Cove which is what lead to my own experimentation.
Did you follow all of that?

I suppose it's not all that important other than that Squid sort of inspired this first cocktail, so I hereby dedicate it to him. Or something like that.

That I am calling it "The Redhead" is a joke. Not a joke about him but about the ingredients. If it's not fully obvious, I suppose I can explain, but I'm going to wait and see if people get it.
But let's get on with it, shall we?

A thing Squid has mentioned on his blog is how much he likes fresh-squeezed orange juice. I'm not much of a juice drinker myself, but I can understand the appeal of fresh-squeezed orange juice. Because we had oranges for some other cocktail or other we were trying out, I thought I would make an orange-themed cocktail in honor of Squid. But, um... Well, it wasn't that great.

Let me walk that back. I didn't care for it too much because it was too sweet. It was tasty but, for me, it had no bite, so that recipe isn't here. I didn't even write it down. I decided to give it some bite, instead, so let's examine what happened.

Here are the ingredients I played with, and I'll post the full recipe at the bottom.

First, orange juice is too sweet on its own, so I added some lemon juice to it to give it a bit more acidity. The two little containers in front of the alcohol are my fresh-squeezed juices.

Next, I needed to add some orange liqueur.

Yes, we now keep more than one kind of orange liqueur in our house. 
I decided to go with the Cointreau for this. The Curacao is a bit more sweet and, remember, I was going for something with some bite.

Next is some ginger liqueur. You can see that to the left of the Eclipse in top picture. We bought the ginger liqueur for one of the first Cove cocktails we made, and you can tell it's made for mass consumption. It has no spice to it at all. After using it the first time, we cut up some fresh ginger and added it to the bottle. Now, it has some spice to it. We won't be buying ginger liqueur again but will make our own, something we have done in the past. All I can say is that you won't be able to get quite the same drink I have here because I have augmented ginger liqueur.

Ginger beer is another thing Squid has talked about on his blog, rather a lot, actually, and, honestly, I never thought I'd try it. But, then, I didn't realize it was actually a cocktail mixer. Cock and Bull is, evidently, a very popular ginger beer, and it's tasty. I like it. But... Most ginger beers, I have learned, are made to be consumed on their own as well as being used as a mixer, and that's what Cock and Bull is. Q, on the other hand, is intended just as a mixer so, guess what, it's spicier. And pricier. And I like it, too, just on its own, though I don't think I'll be buying it just to drink by itself. Cock and Bull is $1.25 for a 12oz bottle while Q is $2 for an 8oz bottle. You can see where the value is, and the difference between the two is not significant enough for me to want to buy Q on a regular basis. Not to mention that I have to go to a specialty store for Q, while Cock and Bull is available at several local grocery stores. At any rate, for this drink, I prefer the Q, but it's not essential.

Eclipse, by Mount Gay, is our general rum of choice. They make some better rums, specifically, their Black Barrel, but, for the price, we go with Eclipse. My understanding is that Bacardi is cheap shit, and we don't drink it. The picture above is the prepped drink with everything except the ginger beer in it. I wasn't going to drink it right away (I prepared the drink when I had the light to take worthwhile pictures), and ginger beer is fizzy, so I waited to add it when I was going to imbibe. It's kind of pretty, though, huh?

If you decide to make one for yourself, I'd love to know what you think of it, so let me know.
And, now, for the recipe!

The Redhead

3/4oz orange juice

1/2oz lemon juice

1/2oz ginger liqueur

3/4oz Cointreau

2oz Eclipse (or other light rum)

2oz ginger beer

Clone Wars -- "Secret Weapons" (Ep. 5.9)

-- Humility is the only defense against humiliation.

[Remember, you can sign up to join the Clone Wars Project at any time by clicking this link.]
[Well, actually, considering that we're into season five, now, probably no one new is going to sign up, BUT! Hop over to The Armchair Squid for his take on the current episode.]

"Secret Weapons" is what you might call a fun little episode and, when I say "little," I mean that literally. I can only imagine the idea for this episode happened over a few a beers one night when someone said,"Wait! The general can be a frog!"
And someone responded, "And it can ride around in R2's head!"
That or someone is a big fan of the daleks from Doctor Who.

I don't have much more to say about this episode other than that it's fun. It's not significant in anyway, just a break for a bit of humor. Other than that R2 is in it (and not even in a significant way), there aren't even any established characters in the episode other than to start it off. That said, Dr. Gubacher is hilarious and is worth the whole episode. Or, at least, up to the part that he's in. He's like a cross between Igor and Q, and it makes me want a whole series where he's outfitting Jedi with special gadgets. That, um, actually sounds kind of awesome.



"Some of you might not make it back."
"What? Why's he looking at me?"

Spectre (a movie review post)

I would be happier if the producers of the James Bond movies could make up their minds about whether they're doing continuing story lines or not, but I suppose that's not something that has specifically to do with this movie. But even without that, I find Spectre to be much more difficult to make a decision about as to whether I liked it or not. But, see, that's not exactly true, either, because I quite enjoyed watching the movie. Most of the movie.

Okay, I can't do this without spoilers, so be warned.

In a general sense, having Spectre be a direct sequel to Skyfall worked really well. In the specific sense of the antagonist being Bond's "brother," it was kind of a disaster. Seriously, we're supposed to believe that this kid who didn't like the fact that his father took in young Bond after the death of James' parents killed his father and grew up to become the leader of a massive, secret terrorist organization all to more effectively torture James. And kill all of Bond's girlfriends. Yeah, that just doesn't fly. It more like hobbles around on the ground and you just want Christoph Waltz to die.

Speaking of Waltz, I'm a bit tired of him. He might be fine in this movie if I hadn't seen him play the same character in about half a dozen movies at this point, but I have seen him continuously play the same character -- the sort of crazy, kooky, villain -- in film after film, and it's grown tiresome. Maybe some other actor could have gotten me to buy into the villain being Bond's long-thought-dead foster brother, but not Waltz.

Still, it is a Craig Bond movie, and it's highly enjoyable. The action is great, and Daniel Craig still puts on a very believable James Bond. I'm still very much liking Ralph Fiennes as M, and Ben Whishaw is great as Q. Andrew Scott even puts in an admirable performance as C, though it was difficult not to expect him to be a bad guy after his go as Moriarty in Sherlock. He just has that feel. Also, I do really like Naomie Harris as Moneypenny. Lea Seydoux is fine as Swann, which I only say because it doesn't seem that she did anything with the role that a dozen (or more) other actresses couldn't have done.

So... the bottom line:
Spectre is quite worth seeing in the theater, especially if you're a Bond fan. It's also essential viewing for the Bond fan, since this one continues to delve into Bond's backstory. Aside from Waltz and the whole "brother" thing, it's a really good movie. Great action, good acting, stunning visuals. Despite Waltz, I'm sure I'll be buying it on disc as soon as it's released. If you're not a Bond fan or if you're not familiar with the Bond movies, this is not the movie for you. It's certainly not a good place to start if you haven't seen any other Bond films. I do hope, though, that they move away from exploring Bond's childhood soon. I mean, why is it, after all, that we have to make orphans of all of our heroes?

How To Be... Q

So you want to be Q?

Well, unfortunately, you need to be born in the Q Continuum. Sorry. It's just not gonna work out for you.

Oh, wait!
You meant this Q

Well, that requires that you join the British Secret Service. Maybe. And being able to make nifty spy gadgets.

Oh, no, wait! That's not right, either...

How To Be... a Quantum Mechanic

Okay, so there's really no such thing as a "quantum mechanic." Yet.
However, with quantum communication on the horizon (possibly closer than you think), and quantum computers in development (the first one has already been built), and the possibility of all of this leading to artificial intelligence and robots and warp drive (also in development and has been done on a small scale), I can't think of a better name for the guy that has to come around and fix your tech when it breaks down. I imagine, at first, at least, that this will take a lot more schooling than a trade school.

My advice? Take as much quantum physics as you can. The next generation of technology is coming. It can't hurt to be prepared.

Skyfall -- Just a Name

On the surface, Skyfall is a really excellent movie.That's because it's a really excellent movie. If you take it as an individual movie and forget that James Bond already exists. That includes forgetting the previous two Daniel Craig Bond films. As an individual movie, it really only has one flaw: its title. The title is a lie and has nothing to do with the movie at all.

Yeah, yeah, I hear those of you out there that have already seen it saying, "But..." (and I'm not finishing that sentence, because I'm avoiding the spoiler). It seems pretty obvious to me that the title was arrived at completely separately from the movie. Something like:
"Wouldn't Skyfall be a cool title?"
"Sure, but it has nothing to do with the movie."
"Well, can't we work it in somehow?"
So, yeah, the "word" was just thrown into the movie so that it could be used as a title and has absolutely no meaning whatsoever. I felt a little bit cheated by that. But not really enough for it to take away from the movie experience overall. It's sort of like the pricker you get in your finger while picking blackberries; it's annoying, but it's not gonna keep you from enjoying the cobbler.

So for the movie itself:
The action was great. There was only one bit that I thought really strained plausibility (it had to do with a subway train), so that was pretty good. But, then, these new Bond films have been better at "keeping it real" than some of the older ones.

The acting was great. Daniel Craig is a great Bond, and, of course, Judi Dench is just great. Ralph Fiennes is also in this one, and he was surprisingly good. I say "surprisingly" because, while he can be great, he is not always great, and this seemed like the kind of role where he was more expected to look good rather than be good, but he was quite good, and I'm glad that his character is one that will (should) be returning.

The tech... well... there's a lot of computer stuff in this, hacking and all sorts of things like that, and, mostly, that was okay, but...
Well, I went to see this with my friend that works for... um, Lucasfilm? Well, right now, he works for Lucasfilm; I suppose they will keep that name even once Disney takes over in January, because that's how they do it, so, yeah, I went to the Lucasfilm premiere of the movie with my buddy that works there. Well, two buddies, now, because one of our mutual friends now works there with him. I think he's trying to recruit everyone he knows into working there, and I want to know when it gets to be my turn, but I suppose they don't really need any writers. That's not his department anyway.
But I digress...
So I was there with my friend, and there's this scene where Q is explaining some computer something-or-other with a lot of technobabble, and my friend just starts laughing. Not LOLing or anything, just a sustained chuckle. So I know whatever he was going on about was gibberish, because my friend does the whole computer thing. I'm fairly technologically challenged (just ask my wife (also notice that I still have that same, stupid generic blogger wallpaper for my blog)), so I probably wouldn't have noticed if he hadn't been laughing; I mean, I don't know what they're going on about either way. Well, except for the part where I just sort of assume that it's all meaningless technobabble anyway.

However, as much as I enjoyed it as an individual movie, I was more than a little let down with the movie in terms of its relationship to the other Bond films. There are two main reasons for this:

1. With Casino Royale and the re-boot of the Bond franchise, they created an ongoing story line. Quantum of Solace, while not the greatest Bond film as an individual movie, was an excellent continuation of that story. It felt like they were putting things in place for something really cool, and I was intrigued by where they were going. With Skyfall, though, they just drop that whole story line and, at the moment, have no plans to go back to it. This is incredibly disappointing, and, for that reason, despite how good Skyfall is on its own, it is, itself, also disappointing.

2. Skyfall feels like even more of a re-boot than Casino. There is a grasp in this one to make this Bond the definitive Bond. The Bond. An attempt to sweep away all earlier versions, while still giving a nod to them, and actually make this 007 James Bond. I can't be more explicit than that without giving spoilers, but I just want to say that I wasn't entirely happy with this aspect of the movie in relation to the other Bond movies. Casino did a fine job of updating the franchise and setting up a new sequence of movies. There was no need to go even further back and attempt to shove all the other movies aside.

But, still, all by itself, Skyfall is well worth seeing.
Just ignore that the time frame of the opening events doesn't quite match up, and all should be well. Maybe, I shouldn't have pointed that out, though.

NOTE:
Remember that Friday, this Friday, Nov. 16, is the Oh, How I Miss You blogfest hosted by myself, Alex Cavanaugh, and Matthew McNish. If you haven't already signed up, follow one of the links and get over there and do it! Let's let some people  know that we've noticed their absence. It's always good to know you're missed!