Wow, I am so shocked about something I just read in my hometown newspaper, I’m almost speechless; and, in fact, jumped over here to write about it while I’m still processing the shock before I finished reading the rest of the paper (or the rest of the article, for that matter).

Yesterday it was announced that the Tennessean is cutting service to ten counties west of Dickson. I probably shouldn’t be quite as surprised as I am, as we’ve been discussing media matters (as in old school vs. current technology) here around the regional blogosphere for some time now, and I guess the writing’s been on the wall - especially now, with these outrageous fuel costs in this country. Still, the actuality of this has me stunned.

I wasn’t all that surprised a little over a week ago when my hometown newspaper announced that The Commercial Appeal, Memphis’ daily newspaper, was going to cease circulation in my home county (and, I would assume, my other home county next door where I went to high school). This is strictly my opinion, but I think the CA shot itself in the foot a few years ago - a foot that was already tenuous, at best, in Northwest Tennessee - when the decision was made to decrease news coverage of most anything north of Jackson.

Initially, that included the obituaries, which was about the only reason I still subscribed to the print version of the CA the last ten years that I did, so I could keep up with things like that that I needed to know back home. A little later - and after what I would assume were many complaints (I know they received two for sure) - they revised the decision a bit and began to re-include that region in the obituaries, but they never did quite get back up to speed with it and they frequently missed a lot, and pretty much the same with the news in general.

It just never did quite get back to speed and return to being the “overall” regional coverage and inclusion of all things not only Memphis but the broad surrounding area that, frankly, to me was always far superior to The Tennessean until maybe seven or eight years ago. I stopped subscribing to home delivery in the early part of this decade, partially due to the rising cost and the convenience of being able to read it online anyway, but mainly because of the decrease in regional coverage from north of Jackson. The decrease in general news coverage was actually pretty gradual over time, but the day they killed the obituaries was probably the death knell for a lot of people with the CA - both those living in Northwest Tennessee and those of us with a vested interest in the region.

So it’s not really a surprise to me that the CA is quitting Northwest Tennessee. I expect there were very few home delivery subscribers - if any - left, and doubt there were many buying it out of what few CA stands were still left around up yonder.

And when it comes down to it, like I said, the CA’s foothold in the region has probably always been tenuous at best because that’s basically a Nashville news area - just about smack in the middle of the two, but just a little closer to Nashville and (more importantly, probably) an area which has been served by Nashville television and radio lo these many years. Before other stations started creeping in and then cable just exploded into a million channels, you had the three big Nashville network affiliates plus the PBS station, and then the alternate network stations in Paducah, Cape Girardeau, Jackson, and the other PBS station in Lexington, and that was it. You had to get closer to Jackson to get Memphis TV stations.

So, being almost all Nashville news towns TV-wise, that area has always been pretty pro-Tennessean vs. The Commercial Appeal as well, so - again - the CA’s demise in that area’s not surprising. You had people who subscribed to both - we did, my family - but we were likely in the minority. We actually subscribed for years to home delivery of the CA daily and Sunday, and only subscribed to the Sunday Tennessean, but then again we had a daily paper in town most of my life. Until about six or seven years ago, anytime I was at home visiting, I went out on Sundays I was there and picked up both the Memphis and Nashville papers. Our preference for the CA was probably partially due to my parents both having gone to college in Memphis, but also I think we just generally all agreed the CA was superior to the Tennessean.

But that’s not at all true of most folks up there; like I said, those are mostly pro-Tennessean towns just west and just east of the Tennessee River, so I’m just really shocked that the paper is going to discontinue all service up there - not even in stores or on the paper racks. And so soon on the heels of the CA’s same decision, and especially when the Tennessean’s always been so far ahead of the CA in popularity (and, one would assume, sales). But in this case, I guess better sales (for whatever that was worth in this day and age) no longer makes up for the astronomical rise in fuel costs, as well as other expenses.

But even though I haven’t actually resided in Northwest Tennessee since 1985, it is kind of freaking me out to think of both those papers not being there - at least the Sunday editions. This is actually a pretty large area we’re talking about and - man. It’s weird to think about, and it’s going to also be really strange not to see newspaper racks around up there (or at least not but a couple).

If I wasn’t so hyper-aware of the issue, maybe I wouldn’t even notice they’re not around anymore, I don’t know. But right now I’m just picturing in my head the sight of outside the post office in downtown Paris, by the door of all the convenience stores in Paris and Camden, the racks by the cash register of dozens of other stores - all those places that I knew, if I wanted (or needed) to run out and get a Sunday Tennessean or CA, they’d be there. And now they won’t be. And that’s weird.

So that pretty much leaves a fairly large area without a large newspaper service, not even on Sunday. Well, there is one large-ish paper - if you could even call it that - not as big as the other two, still around (for now). But if you can’t be nice, and all that, you know. That’s why I’m not going to say anything else at all about that one.

I don’t know. It’s weird. I think we’ve all sort of seen this coming, but just now with this it really and truly seems like the real beginning of the end of an era now, to me anyway, and that’s of course from a total layman’s point of view. But not only am I just freaked out about what if I am back home and want a Sunday paper and have to drive an hour in either direction to get one, of course; I’m concerned for the friends (like this one and this one and this one and this one) and family who are right at the heart of it all too.

No Sunday papers in a ten-county area, gas prices looking like they’re pushing towards five bucks a gallon, and I just noticed my dog’s usual (and previously relatively inexpensive) dog food has gone up nearly an entire four dollars a bag. My salary’s certainly taken a big hit this year catastrophically - and I’m obviously not a “normal” case - but even if I was still working the same job, I’m pretty sure my salary wouldn’t have gone up much (if at all), and I imagine many others are in the same boat. What’s next? I’m honestly beginning to dread to even wonder.

So today I met up with KathyT, her sister, and her youngest daughter for Huey Burgers (except Melissa had the Huey’s Club, the rest of us had the original Huey Burgers) and just had a fabulous time visiting with them. It’s always great to see Kathy, and her sister Karen is just delightful and funny as well. Melissa’s a really cool kid and is going home with a huge trophy - and is also getting her braces off soon, I hear. (Man, I remember that was one of the best days of my life, getting those things off for good after three long years.)

They had thought about going to Graceland but had decided not to, but they wanted to go to Mississippi since Karen and Melissa had never been, so that was a sort of easily solved two birds killed with one stone. I hopped into the van with them after lunch and we took off down Bellevue, which becomes Elvis Presley Blvd. and then becomes just plain old Highway 51 at the Tennessee-Mississippi state line. (Well, I guess it’s always Highway 51 anyway, but you know what I mean.)

So yeah, we went to Southaven and then even on down into Horn Lake, where Kathy bought a new headlight and the cute guy at Advance Auto Parts installed it for her even though he really didn’t want to.

Then we came back to Memphis, having driven past Graceland on the way down, but since it’s on that side of the road coming back - yeah, we pulled into the pull-off and got out and walked around the wall and gates a bit. Karen took a picture of me and Kathy and Melissa under the National Register of Historic Places sign that I hope will be so bad (because it no doubt will be of me, they always are) that Kathy won’t put it up on her blog. (Haha, just kidding… I think.) And Kathy took a bunch of pics of some of the graffiti on the wall.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun hanging out with them and thanks once again to Kathy for lunch & the company, I had a great time. And my dogs thank her profusely since virtually none of us finished our entire burger/sandwich or fries (I almost ate my whole Huey Burger but not quite), so Kathy sent me home with a literal doggie bag LOADED with french fries and what probably amounted to almost one entire Huey Burger or almost. It was a feeding frenzy the likes of which you usually only see in the wild on the Discovery Channel, Dobie almost took one or two of my fingers off.

What was really funny, though, was Daisy was the only one smart enough to figure out what I’d brought home in the box I was holding when I walked in the door. The boys were completely clueless (*rolls eyes*).

It was a gorgeous day in Memphis today, and since I was in the neighborhood I drove by my buddy Joey’s house thinking if they were outside I’d stop and say hey. But they weren’t, so I just headed on home after a stop off for needed Krogering.

By the way, I actually have a piece of Graceland in my possession - a piece of rock/stone that I think came from a walkway, I don’t think it came from the wall. My mom wound up with it when she was down here in college, I think a friend of hers actually did the actual deed, but yeah, it’s a piece of Graceland circa around 1961-63. Heh.

With a nod to ‘Coma for recently citing two of my favorite movies of all time, if I am stuck on a deserted island with nothing but a TV and a DVD player and only ten DVDs, I believe I can get by with these. In no particular order:

1. River’s Edge - In the Nineties and pre-DVD days, I practically killed myself to get a VHS copy of this off eBay. Crispin Glover is a madman (in real life and on camera) - and was wonderful in the Back to the Future films - but he truly shines here in seriously disturbing and unnerving glory. Say what you will about Keanu Reeves, and yes, he’s played the same role a million times, but it suits him no better than in this film. The film is SUPPOSED to be disturbing and so are the characters. And to boot, it’s based on a true story. Side Trivia: Ione Skye Leitch, daughter of ’60s music icon Donovan, appears as Keanu’s love interest in the film, one of her first (Gas Food Lodging is another good one featuring her). She is also the ex-wife of Adam Horowitz of the Beastie Boys, and had a long-term live-in relationship with Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
2. Heathers - Quite possibly my fave film of all time ever. Yeah, it’s starting to look a little dated now but that only adds to its charm nowadays. And the setting is Westerburg (sic) High School - need I say more? There are so many fabulous tongue-in-cheek in-jokes in this movie - the Heathers, Betty & Veronica, millions more - it’s just beautiful. Back in the days when I actually used to go OUT to the movies, I saw this one about five times in the theater in the same month. Side Trivia: Kim Walker, who played Heather Duke (the first dead Heather) was dating Christian Slater at the time, but they broke up during filming of the movie. Walker later developed a brain tumor and died in 2001 at the age of 32.
3. Say Anything… - There have been few John Cusack movies I haven’t adored, but director Cameron Crowe’s Say Anything… is THE one. I have referenced Lloyd Dobler on this blog so many times over the years (as well as other Cusack films), I have a separate John Cusack category on the blog. I would have a super hard time picking a favorite scene, but my favorite is probably when Lloyd confronts the guys sitting outside the Gas ‘N Sip. Lili Taylor does a marvelous turn as well in this flick, and her songs about Joe (especially the one - you know the one) always have me in fits of giggles on the floor while watching. Side Trivia: Ione Skye also appears in this one, as Lloyd’s love interest Diane. The Replacement’s “Within Your Reach” is also notably featured in this film, which of course is another of the million reasons I fell in love with it so hard.
4. Gremlins - I can’t even talk about how much I have always loved this movie without crying. I haven’t watched it in many, many years for the same reason. I first saw it while on summer vacation in a theater in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware in 1984. Side Trivia: Judge Reinhold & Phoebe Cates also appeared together in another fondly remembered for me film of the ’80s, Cameron Crowe’s (again) Fast Times at Ridgemont High. It’s not one of my very favorites and it’s certainly gotten dated, but it is still funny, especially if you grew up in the ’80s.
5. Less Than Zero - Another, to borrow a phrase, ’80s “the kids are NOT all right” film, and another I practically paid an arm and a leg for to get a VHS copy of back in the ’90s. This one is akin to a John Hughes movie gone all wrong. It’s got its problems and on the surface would appear to be really out there as far as the whole wealthy and disaffected youth thing, but it’s really not as implausible as one would think. The details of the scenes themselves may have been different, but mainly due to geographics - the base story existed all over the country at the time, including Nashville. Side Trivia: Oh, James Spader, how despicable you are in this film, but how I adore you anyway and have in every film you’ve ever been in.
6. Sid & Nancy - And thus begun the rest of my lifelong adoration of Gary Oldman as well. There are much better films he’s been in (and I love each and every one of them), but Alex Cox’s Sid & Nancy was his first big role, and there was just no one else who could have been a more perfect Sid Vicious. It’s the most disturbing and disgusting and sickening love story and everything punk was, a beautiful film in all its ugliness and has one of the best soundtracks ever. My friend Jen used to do the best Chloe Webb doing Nancy (”SIIIIIIIIID!”) that would have me rolling in the floor. Side Trivia: Look for an extremely young Courtney Love in a few scenes as one of Nancy Spungen’s pals.
7. Drugstore Cowboy - I used to not think very highly of Matt Dillon as an actor until this one came out, and I became a fan of Gus Van Sant’s films on this one. Like many of my favorites, it’s disturbing and difficult to watch, but one of the greatest things about this film is that even though the story is pitiful and pathetic, Matt Dillon is SO funny in it. Under the surface of all the dirty drug addiction tale, this movie is hilarious. Also has an excellent soundtrack of gems from the time of the film’s setting, including The Count Five’s “Psychotic Reaction”, Desmond Dekker’s “The Israelites”, Gary Lewis & the Playboys’ “Judy in Disguise”, and Hazel, KY/slash/Puryear, TN (my home county) native Jackie DeShannon’s “Put a Little Love in Your Heart”. Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho is also pretty good though a little faulty; this one is better. Side Trivia: Matt Dillon’s first big film role as a young teen was in another big all-time favorite of mine that has become a cult classic of sorts, Over the Edge - another one that has gotten very ’70s dated over time but still well worth watching, plus then-not-so-known Cheap Trick is largely featured on the soundtrack. As a commenter on iMDB noted, Over the Edge was “a teen movie that gets it right”.
8. Dogs in Space - An Australian film you’ve probably never heard of and another disaffected youth mostly on drugs flick, but this time based in Melbourne’s post-punk scene of the late ’70s - and also based on more true stories, and starring - yes - the late Michael Hutchence of INXS. This film is such a favorite of mine I paid an extremely huge amount of money to get the VHS tape in the ’90s, and the last time I checked on DVD prices (which admittedly has been a few years now) it could be had for $200-350 - that price has probably gone down by now. Very much a “slice of life” flick and disturbing in places to watch, but it’s excellent and also has a soundtrack far beyond excellent - Iggy Pop, Nick Cave/Boys Next Door, Brian Eno, Gang of Four, and some more legends of the time as well as the fab tracks done by Hutchence and crew.  An iMDB commenter said, “This is for when you’re feeling like you need some company, but you don’t feel like venturing past your doorstep” - I agree.  Side Trivia: The real Sam Sejavka, who fronted Melbourne band The Ears in the late ’70s and is played by Hutchence in the film, appears in the movie twice and is addressed by Hutchence in the party scene as “Michael”.
9. Quandary: Real Genius or The Doors - I can’t help it, I do love me some Val Kilmer, and if I could take another dozen or so films I’d be taking all the Val Kilmer films as well as the entire John Hughes oeuvre with me. Real Genius is so freakin’ hilarious through and through and I defy anyone to disagree with me. Oliver Stone’s epic The Doors has got its problems but it mostly gets it right and dang, Kilmer did such a dead-on Jim Morrison it’s almost creepy, I can’t help it, I think his performance in this film was brilliant. This was another I saw probably eight times or more while it was still first-run in the theater. Probably in the end, The Doors would win out, but jeez, it’d be a tough call. Side Trivia: Kilmer did most of the singing in the film himself and even the surviving Doors (Manzarek, Krieger, and Densmore) admitted they had a hard time telling the difference. So did I the first time I saw the film; I had no idea it wasn’t Jim Morrison’s vocals. On that basis alone, par excellence. Also look for a fairly large number of Doors associates and other scenesters of the time, including producer Paul Rothchild, Patricia Kennealy, singer Bonnie Bramlett, Eric Burdon of The Animals, and a Door himself - drummer John Densmore - in cameo appearances.
10. Another tough call - Birdy or Platoon? - My decades-long adoration of and obsession with Matthew Modine is only barely outweighed by John Cusack and only slightly precedes James Spader, and having to decide between these two films is awful, though Birdy would probably win out in the end. This also meant I had to toss out another huge Modine favorite and an underappreciated and hugely funny one that probably doesn’t appear on many favorites lists, Married to the Mob. All three are fabulous films for their own reasons. Side Trivia: Having now mentioned Birdy, I also have to mention two more that didn’t make the cut - Valley Girl and Raising Arizona, all featuring Modine’s Birdy co-star Nicolas Cage, also good. Valley Girl, which was really Cage’s big film break, is worth it for The Plimsouls on stage alone. Wow, I first saw that one at the drive-in in 1983.

God, that was awful to try to choose ten and I still didn’t really succeed. Here are a few more - runners-up, I suppose - that didn’t make the final cut:

1. Edward Scissorhands - I love this movie in all its goofy glory so much it makes me cry and it killed me to leave it off the list. In retrospect, I might have to swap one of the above for it. Side Trivia: Speaking of Tim Burton, there’s also Beetlejuice, of course.
2. Pretty much all of the John Hughes Brat Pack-era movies (which you likely knew was coming) and Joel Schumacher’s St. Elmo’s Fire - It’d be a hard call, but St. Elmo’s Fire would be the first cut ‘cos it’s almost too cheesy. Some Kind of Wonderful and Pretty in Pink, I love but could live without. The Breakfast Club is, well, The Breakfast Club, but it’s not my very favorite. It’d come down to a tremendously agonizing tug of war between Sixteen Candles and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and I honestly don’t know which would win. Ferris would probably win, though. Even though - Side Trivia: John Cusack makes his second film appearance in a small part as one of the geeks in Sixteen Candles.
3. Ciao! Manhattan - As much as I adore this, which is not so much a real film per se but more of a collection of some of the few remaining pieces of film footage of Warhol superstar Edie Sedgwick, as well as many other Factory scenesters, I just can’t justify it being one of the ten. Still, it’d be hard. Side Trivia: I hear the DVD, which I still don’t own, has loads of extra footage and modern commentary by some of the actors from what was supposed to have been the original film, and I’m dying to see it.
4. Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains - Unless you had The Movie Channel or HBO in the early ’80s, you probably don’t know this film; it’s been out of print and unavailable for decades. I had a taped copy for years and the tape finally broke seven or eight years ago. This was one of Diane Lane’s earliest films and also features a very young Laura Dern. It’s an excellent film and, along with the aforementioned Over the Edge, is as responsible for my musical obsessions/addictions as any piece of recorded music is. I was pleasantly shocked and surprised to see co-star Ray Winstone’s name for the first time in years when he turned up in the multi-award winning Nil By Mouth in 1997. The good news is that after years of fans pleading, I got word the other day via MySpace that the film is finally going to be released on DVD and, in fact, the very next day got a notification from Amazon that the DVD was now available for pre-ordering. Side Trivia: Former Sex Pistols Steve Jones and Paul Cook, and former Clash bassist Paul Simonon, appear as the other members of the band in the movie led by Winstone.
5. Pretty much every Kevin Smith and David Lynch film ever made - I can’t decide. I can’t, I can’t. Though I guess Dogma and Blue Velvet. Or maybe Chasing Amy and Eraserhead. Or… I can’t decide. Don’t make me.

God, that was painful. And it would really suck if there was no electricity on that island.

Since I was compelled to create a new category today called Squirrel Queen Tales, I am equally compelled to add the now-infamous Goosepond Swamp Monster legend to it, and link to the photo of where said Goosepond Monster lives.

Notice there’s no talk of Goosepondery over here.  But I’m still putting my money on ‘Coma.  If anyone can find the GSM, she can.

(Technically I guess the category should be ‘Coma tales, but seeing as how the category was begat of Squirrelly’s now-confirmed ice cream headache remedy that I impudently laughed at when I first heard it, plus Squirrel Queen Tales just sounds funnier…)

One of these days, I’m no longer going to have a host of old posts moved over from the old site that need to be edited and categorized. There’s still 274 of them, mostly from 1997 to 2000. I usually catch the old ones as they come up as hits in my blog stats and fix them then, but god, I can hardly stand to read that old stuff, especially, say, pre-2000 or thereabouts. Partially because there are so many posts about friends of mine who have been dead a pretty long time now, though one of these days I guess I will be glad I documented so much of those years.

But mainly I can’t stand to read them because those old posts just make me wince. For someone who was already (ok, barely) in her thirties when I started blogging in 1997, I find I was rather ridiculous and giggly and I just see some of that stuff and go “ewww”. Or “ugh”.

That’s a goal before I die, though, get all that old crap categorized and edited - edited meaning separated into logical paragraphs. I got lazy and more tired the more mammoth that chore of moving them became and just at some point quit trying to make it all pretty and moved them all in bulk and in big chunks. I mean, I was copying and pasting years and years’ worth of HTML entries. HTML. It was a pain.

And another goal is to get Sarcastro’s old photos re-uploaded to his now-not-that-new blog, still. (Says the Queen of Procrastination…)

Those are reasonable and reachable goals I think, probably unlike the other 5 million goals and projects on the list. I wish there were three or four or even five or six of me and maybe I could get some things FINISHED for a change.

There’s just really no time to be spared, so pardon me for this hit & run update.

1. A little while ago, I ate a cheese Krystal - because I was badly in need of food that I could get quick and didn’t have to cook and it was 3 in the morning - and it was unbelievably, horribly, terribly, awfully & ungodly bad. I have never had a Krystal that tasted that disgustingly, putridly bad in my life. Yes, I realize that Krystals are not haute cuisine, but come on - it’s a Krystal. How can you screw up a Krystal that bad?? If I die in my sleep here in a little bit, you’ll know what happened. Blech. A shoe sole would have tasted better I think.

2. I’ve been eating entirely too much fast food lately anyway, which is kind of okay because I never eat anyway and all I ever get is, like, one little McDonald’s cheeseburger, and they’re all of a dollar and I DO NOT HAVE TIME to cook. But let’s not talk about the fact that in the past two weeks I’ve been served (A) a cheeseburger that was between two top buns, and (B) got home one day and opened the bag to discover I had a top & bottom bun with cheese in the middle - and no burger. Wake up, people! I know it’s just an unimportant $1.00 cheeseburger, but it might just be someone’s only meal of the day that you totally screw up.

3. I know I shouldn’t have laughed because they’re both elderly and one’s a little sickly and might be a bit senile, but watching not just one but two of my cats fall off the desk a few minutes ago, within a few minutes of each other, with an empty chip bag (the small 99-cent Big Grab size) on their heads was almost as funny as a few years ago when my elderly then-16-year old cat got his head stuck inside an empty Krystal Chik box.

4. On a not-as-amusing note, Maggie’s (same Maggie as in the pic above) new favorite place to nap is with her head on the edge of my keyboard, which usually eventually occurs to me at some point after being puzzled as to why I’m typing in all caps or ““““` is appearing on the screen again.

5. I am apparently now completely and totally assimilated into the electronic communications world at this point, because now that my fax AND my printer are both borked, and a fax that I needed to get where it needed to go so I could start getting some commission payments didn’t go through because that dinosaur of a mid-’90s era fax that I inherited from my old office is totally dead now… it took about a month for it to finally occur to me that I could just put a stamp on an envelope and MAIL it.

6. Besides the petered out fax and printer, now my desktop is apparently on its last legs too - I’ve known it was coming, was hoping to hold it off a little longer, seeing as how that’s pretty distressing since I do 100% of my work on this computer these days - but it spit out a frightening serious error at me the other day and threatened to not start (but it eventually did). In the course of seeing what I could afford to ditch in an effort to get it speeded up a little and prepare to defragment the drive for the first time in I dunno how long, after going through some other directories, I took note of the millions of Notepad files I’ve got saved to the desktop - and had a bit of a chuckle over the title of some of those files, such as: CLC Links Widget, WP Tutorial, Moved Blogs, kathyt, kathyt Links Widget, More Moved Blogs, B Blogger Template, one simply titled B, B Tutorial (yes, I don’t remember why I felt I needed to make her her own instead of giving her the one I gave everyone else), and Sarcastro Stuff (which reminds me yet again that I STILL need to repost all his old photos one of these days, ugh). Anyway, giggle - yeah, I’m a blog geek.

7. There are angels in the blogosphere and in my MySpacesphere too. Angels, I tell you.

8. I’m so tired I don’t have time to BREATHE, and I don’t have time anyway because I have way too much work and projects to do. This staying up for a day and a half at a time, sleeping a few hours and starting all over again is getting a little old. I’ve been up again for about 38 or 39 hours now and worked straight through for about 22 well, really about 29 or 30, of those, so yeah - ’scuse me if I’m a little loopy right now.

That is all. But seriously, if I don’t at least show up for a minute on Twitter by tonight? Food poisoning. Ugh, a nasty, dirty, filthy shoe sole would have no doubt tasted better. Yuck.

9. (Yes, Lesley and Brittney, I know I shouldn’t eat meat anyway.)

10. (But still - it’s a Krystal! How can anyone screw up a Krystal??)

11. Zzzzzz…

One thing I almost always get in my Christmas stocking every year (we’re Episcopalian, that explains it, right?) is a few miniature bottles of whatever liquor or liqueur - usually Bailey’s or Kahlua since I drink stuff like that in coffee often in the winter, but sometimes other stuff. I don’t drink much liquor as a rule and my tastes tend to run to anything that tastes like Kool-Aid. I like many Schnapps - green apple, cinnamon, butterscotch, peach (Pucker in the peach preferably, the rest is too sweet). I like white rum, vodka, and that’s really about it. In the last couple of years, I’ve scored some little bottles of Stoli and some vodka from the Czech Republic.  It’s also a well-known fact I like orange soda.

So what better after a really crummy week than to pull a Keith Richards and celebrate the end of this awful week with Keef’s favorite drink, Nuclear Waste - orange soda, cranberry juice, and vodka. Although I’m kinda beginning to think about halfway through that this might taste better with some of that Malibu Rum I’ve had stashed in the kitchen for months instead.

But it’s okay. Depending on where you read, some recipes don’t include the cranberry juice - just straight orange soda and vodka, I think better with the cranberry juice though. Some recipes claim it has to be Sunkist (which I can’t stand) and some say orange Fanta (which is what I’m drinking). It’s all right, but I’m probably still going to dump some of that coconut rum in there before the night is through.

On another note, you might want to have a couple of your own favorite beverages and then go look at this.  (Please don’t tell anybody that my first question to ‘Coma when she first pointed it out was, “Are they kangaroos?” - let’s just keep that between you and me.)

Very much sad about this.

His was literally one of the first Nashville & Tennessee regional blogs I started reading regularly, lo, all those ages ago.  I’m sure there’s good reasons but I’m gonna m