From a CraigsList posting:

Reply to: pers-1034023062@craigslist.org [?]
Date: 2009-02-13, 7:30PM PST

To the woman that crapped in my car. (NE Portland)

We met on Craigslist so I am hoping that this post finds you. I know that it could quite possibly be the most humiliating first date that you have ever been on, but I am willing to look past that.

I thought we had chemistry sitting at McMenamins sharing that basket of Cajun Tots while drinking the Terminator Stout. I really felt like there was a connection there. I found you to be intelligent and witty and looked forward to further conversation with you.

At some point in life, everyone has gambled on a fart and lost. It just happened to be on a first date in the passenger seat of my car. Please don't feel bad. The package I sent you with Pepto the next day and the note that said "First dates are always a crap shoot. Call me" was meant to be funny, not offensive.

I have gambled on a fart and lost on multiple occasions. The first time I did it was very memorable. It happened when I was five and sitting on my uncle's lap. I am lactose intolerant, but love cheese. I probably win 95% of the time, but I don't think anyone wins 100% of the time. That's why they call it "gambling". I'm the last person to judge you for crapping your pants. In fact, I am impressed by your boldness. The timing on the other hand, could have been a tad bit better...like when you're not sitting on a heated leather seat...

What I am trying to say is that if you want to go out again, I would be more than happy to take you someplace where we can get a meal that is high in fiber and less taxing on the digestive tract.

I await your call,
Stout
P.S. - If you shat yourself on purpose to end the evening early.Touch .

Infusing vodka with Skittles is a very popular trend right now. There are a couple of different ways to do it. My way involves separating all the Skittles into their separate flavors and making five different bottles of Skittles vodka.



For this project, you'll need:



One 1.75 liter bottle of vodka (I used Stoli - you don't need the most expensive vodka, but do avoid the cheap ones)
Five 8.5 ounce flasks or bottles
One 1 pound bag of Skittles
Five empty plastic water bottles
A funnel
Bowls for separating the Skittles into flavors
A measuring cup (not pictured)
Coffee filters or paper towels

You'll also want to cover your workspace with newspaper or freezer paper - this infusion can get messy. If you're making a different sized batch, here's the formula you need to know: I used 60 Skittles to 6 ounces of vodka, which yields about 8 ounces of infused vodka. If you want to make 1.5 times that, or 3 times that, just multiply your amounts.

Step 1: Separate Skittles into Flavors
Start by simply separating the Skittles into flavors. You want 60 of each.



Step 2: Setting up your Infusion Bottles
Fill your water bottles with 6 ounces of vodka each. It doesn't need to be exact - you can always even it out later by pouring in a bit more vodka to the ones that come out with less.



Step 4: Add the Skittles



Pour the Skittles of one flavor into one infusion bottle, then pour the next flavor of Skittles into the next infusion bottle, and so on until all five bottles have a pile of Skittles soaking in the vodka.



Youcould certainly be more sophisticated than I was here, and use a funnel to pour the Skittles of each flavor into one of the bottles. The reason I did it this way was that I felt it would be easier to wash each flavor of Skittles off my hands before moving onto the next one than it than to get that flavor out of the funnel each time - that plastic tends to hold onto the flavors, skin doesn't.

Step 5: Shake ' ~em, shake ' ~em, shake ' ~em



Now your infusion bottles all have Skittles in the bottom. Give each bottle a good shake - the more, the better. In my picture here, you can see that the colored candy coating has already rubbed off into the vodka, but the white insides of the Skittles still have a lot of dissolving to do. After shaking them, set them aside for a few hours. It's a good idea to shake them again then, especially if you're making a bigger batch. My Skittles all dissolved overnight. Once they're all dissolved, you'll notice a lot of white muck floating at the top. We'll take care of this in Step 6.



Step 6: Strain


There are a number of ways to strain this stuff and get all the white gunk out. Some people prefer paper towels, but I used coffee filters and found they worked just as well. I put a funnel inside a measuring cup.



Then I put four coffee filters in the funnel. It's hard to say exactly how many you'll need, since not all coffee filters are exactly the same. I'll tell you one thing I did learn, though: orange and green needed more filtration than the others. I discovered this when I thought I was finished, and found a little bit of white stuff still floating in those two flavors. No problem, though: I just strained them again through one more coffee filter, and that took care of it. So if you find you haven't strained it thoroughly enough, the good news is: you can always fix that later.



Then I poured one of the infusions into my strainer setup. I had to pour about a quarter of my infusion in, then wait for some of it to soak through, then pour another quarter in, until I was done. (If the strainer clogs with white gunk, use a spoon to scrape the white gunk out of the way.) In the end, you'll have about 8 ounces of Skittle infused vodka. Then I dumped the funnel and coffee filters into one of the bowls I'd used earlier for counting out Skittles, to catch drips as I carried it over to the sink. I washed everything out for re-using (except the coffee filters, of course - those I just rinsed before disposing of, so the sugar wouldn't attract ants).



Then I took the liquid from the measuring cup and poured it into a flask, via the now-clean funnel. You can see here that the green is a little thick, and it shouldn't have been - that's why I ended up having to re-filter it. Then I rinsed the funnel out again. Repeat this process for each flavor. Here you can see about how much gunk the filtration takes out:



Step 7: Chill and Serve

Now you've got 5 flasks or bottles of Skittles infused vodka:



Stick them in the freezer for several hours - overnight is fabulous'



' and they're ready to serve:



Now, these are pretty strong on their own - nearly pure vodka. They are also very sweet. You can drink them straight, served up in a chilled martini glass, or you can use them in a cocktail:

Mix them with ginger ale, 7-up or Sprite to taste
Mix them with cola to taste (diet cola cuts the sweetness a little)
Serve them on the rocks to water it down a little
Some people mix them with fruit juice. I didn't try this, because to me the Skittles were plenty of sweetness for my taste buds.
Everyone's taste varies - there are so many directions you can take
this drink in, you really should try anything that sounds good to you!

Cheers!

After signing up for a GameFly account, I've been burning through games just to see what they're like and often find myself returning them promptly after losing interest within the first 15min.

When Mirror's Edge arrived, I figured I'd be over it quickly just like the others, but this was not the case. I was immediately impressed with the beauty/brightness of the city scape and overall environment. After getting the game play down, the game got really fun.

I didn't mind dying and playing from the save points since each time around, I'd find quicker ways to get to the goal by experimenting with moves like the wall run, or double wall jump, etc that allowed me to progress without losing momentum.

The fighting is definitely not where the game excels, but I do like that you can disarm enemies and use their weapons against them.

If I had something bad to say about it I'd go after the soundtrack. The ambient background music isn't anything to turn your speakers up for. Some people don't like the cut scene animations, but I don't mind it so much. It kinda reminds me of those e-surance commercials.

All in all, this is definitely a fun rental and I look forward to more games like this.