Saturday, January 19, 2013

Adventures in Bartending!

A Tale of Two Shooters

Welcome friends!
It's the third Saturday of the month and that means it's time for a bartending adventure! As my bio says, I write shit and I talk shit, and I read shit, and I drink shit.

Today is the day that I celebrate drinking shit!

For Christmas my sexy-and-wonderful-and-generous-and-well-read boyfriend Brandon (follow him on twitter!) gave me an awesome bartender's guide, The Everything Bartender's Guide. With this book, I'm going to become the best fucking unlicensed bartender in the state of Texas! And once a month, I will share my adventures with YOU!

For my first adventure, I'm tackling a couple of shooters, chosen in part because they both use peach schnapps as their base, but mostly because of their colorful names: The Brain Hemorrhage and The Red-Headed Slut

Here they are!

The Brain Hemorrhage
This is an aptly-named drink, for starters. When I presented it to my victims friends their first reaction was: "Gross!" But it went down smooth. It tasted like you would imagine a diabetic's blood would taste. SWEET, in other words.

Here's the recipe:
1 ounce peach schnapps
1/4 ounce irish cream
1/4 ounce grenadine

The Red-Headed Slut
I much preferred this shooter. It's crisp, and somehow reminiscent of ice tea.
Here's the recipe:
1 ounce peach schnapps
1 ounce jagermeister
2 ounces cranberry juice

Bartending 101
A note on definitions: A shooter is much like a shot in that they're small amounts of liquid and are intended to be drunk in one gulp, but the two differ in one important respect. Shots contain only alcohol. They can be mixtures of alcohols, but they're only alcohols. Shooters also contain mixers.  

 
 

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

ANTIVAMP!

Since this week seems to be all about ebooks and zombies, I thought I'd take this opportunity to introduce you to one of my Twelve Terrifying Tales for 2011: North of Forks

Twenty-year-old Washington native Sara Cullen had a vampire problem.

And before you even ask, NO she's not one of THOSE Cullens. But try telling that to the legions of lost bloodsuckers who wandered into her hometown of Beaver because they missed the exit for Forks. Vampires can be so stupid.

But soon another monster came to town that made the star struck vampires look like cute defenseless puppies. I'm talking about zombies. The zombie plague swept into, and quickly overwhelmed, Sara’s small town. Within days normal life ended. Within weeks there were more ghouls than humans. Finally, a mere three months after the start of the plague, Sara and her friend Jessie Sparks were the only live people left in their corner of Washington.

Or so they thought. But then a handsome stranger wandered into town, and everything Sara and Jessie thought they knew about life in post-zombie-apocalypse Beaver turned upside down.


Zombies eat sparkly vampires for breakfast. Twilight heralded the zombie apocalypse. 

Read North of Forks ! 

Monday, January 14, 2013

A Little Bit of Soap

I suck at blogging + I like blogging = blogging conundrum.

I began this blog late in 2012 in order to share how I write shit, read shit, and drink shit. So what did I do? I stated that fact, and then disappeared.

Well no more! As of this moment my blog has 2 followers and a scant few posts. By the end of 2013 this blog will be vital! 

My solemn vow: I will publish a book review on the second Saturday of each month. And on the third Saturday of each month I will publish a bartending adventure.

If I have the time and the inclination strikes, I may even do more than that...

Saturday, January 12, 2013

FUCK YOU IF YOU DON'T LIKE ZOMBIES!

...Even though I'd understand it if you said that you're growing sick of the tired old zombie tale: Attractive heterosexual couple is on a date/returning home for the first time in years/at a college party when their town is suddenly inundated by a ravenous horde of undead that they must fight off, which they somehow manage to do without getting too messy. (Although it's acceptable if the girl gets sexily disheveled.)

Yeah. It's been done to death.

That's why I was so excited when I found a couple of zombie tales that approach the whole idea from truly unique perspectives. The stories? Locked In: Zombie Bedtime Stories #1 by Thea Isis Gregory and Leroy Stacks vs The Zombies  by Adam Griffin. Let me tell you why I enjoyed these stories so much.

First, these are short stories. I'm a short story writer and a short story reader, and I just love it when I stumble upon a new short tale that really packs a punch. Short stories are a literary entity unto themselves, an entirely separate art form from the novel. And these authors have a real understanding of that.

Second, the main characters of each story are so perfectly flawed that you just want to take them home and bake them cookies (well, maybe not Haley. Read Locked In and you'll understand why). Haley is just beginning her career as a paramedic, has a wonderful boyfriend in Jake, and her whole life ahead of her...or should. She's such a real, likable character that you just can't help but sympathize with her plight.

Leroy Stacks, who stars in his own adventure vs The Zombies wants what Haley has. He's reached an age where he feels that he should have a career locked up or at least in sight, and he should have a satisfying relationship with a woman. But he has none of those things and doesn't really know what to do about it. It takes the arrival of The Zombies to shake his world up and introduce him to his fate.

And here's why I really love these stories. Locked In and Leroy Stacks vs The Zombies are about more than just zombies. In Locked In, Haley is bitten by an undead hobo and becomes a zombie herself fairly early in the tale. The rest of the story is about her experience trapped inside a body that is really no longer hers to control. Her humanity is intact even as her physical self hunts down and feeds on other people. The story raises questions of the nature of humanity and of the true nature of the self.

Locked In: Zombie Bedtime Stories #1 is a gruesome story, to be sure. But it is also deeply emotional. I highly recommend it.

Leroy Stacks vs The Zombies is a coming-of-age story of sorts, with a funny and flawed main character that most readers will recognize. Leroy is the sort of super hero any community would hope for. I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know him.


And good news! Locked In is only the first Zombie Bedtime Story! Read all three! And Adam Griffin promises more Leroy Stacks adventures soon!

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Asked to share three things about herself, Thea Isis Gregory said: she's a nerd, she likes to cook, and she writes horror and science fiction. Here's her nerdy quirky corner of the web http://nerdygnome.wordpress.com/ 

Follow Thea on twitter!

Adam Griffin has an irrational hatred of capri pants. his favorite 80s movie is Ghostbusters and he admits he sometimes mispronounces words on purpose.
I get the impression he would be good friends with Leroy Stacks.
Online, Adam hangs out at http://griffhq.wordpress.com/

Follow Adam on twitter!