Words On Wednesday

These canned cocktails are EVERYWHERE now, but are they any good? In my experience, yes, but not quite as good as the real thing. They are undeniably drinkable. They are even close to the flavor of the drink they're trying to imitate. I spoke a while back of the Bud Light Mixx Tail, and these are even closer. With the Mixx Tail, you can see what they were trying to get at. Most of the canned cocktails I've had, I'd say it's very clear what the drink is supposed to be and it's pretty close. I worried at first that most of them would taste like a very synthetic form of the intended cocktail. In at least most of the versions I've tried, that isn't the case. My first exposure was the Jack Daniel's Whiskey & Cola. I feared it would taste like it was trying to be a Jack and Coke, but no, it genuinely tasted like a pretty strong pour of Jack and Coke. Now, mind you, we have to look at the companies who make these drinks. Mixx Tail was made by Budweiser, a b...

When you get the opportunity to do something new or scary, don’t let fear hold you back. Go for it, take the plunge, and jump. Our seventh grade class field trip was to Earthshine Lodge , in the Appalachian mountains of North Carolina. One of the activities we got to participate in was a ropes course. There were several segments to cross between trees, before reaching a rope swing from one platform to another. After the rope swing were a few more tree segments, and a final zipline back down to the ground. I made it through the first segments of the ropes course without any problems. Even without any athletic ability to speak of, I could make it from tree to tree. Everything went fine until I got to the rope swing. The gap wasn’t extremely far, and participants were secured with a harness, but I simply wasn’t confident in my ability to make it across, or the guide’s ability to catch me. There was an exit from that platform back down to ground level, and I took that exit from the course....

A new Ratchet & Clank game has been out for nearly a year, and I still haven’t played it. Anyone who knows of my gaming preferences can tell you that Ratchet & Clank is one of my favorite intellectual properties. I’m talking in the same echelon as Zelda, Metroid, and those kinds of classics. I LOVE Ratchet games. The graphics, the music, the shooting mechanics, it’s just all amazing. I’ll play them like a gosh dang addict until I’ve upgraded every weapon, found every secret, and satisfied every skill point. I even managed to get my wife on board with Ratchet: Deadlocked and we both had a really good time eking out everything that game had to offer. So, you’d expect that I would be on board with a new release on day one. And in some other scenario, maybe I would be. The problem is, I don’t have a Playstation 5 and I won’t, at least not for a long time. I can’t even blame it on console shortages and scalpers buying up the few that are made. I wouldn’t buy one if shelves were stoc...

There was a Thursday a few months back that was just one of THOSE days. A day that lives in infamy, and one that you never want to experience again. Actually, that day is today. I’m writing this as it happens so that all the details are fresh, but I can guarantee you I won’t forget it by the time this post is published. I’ll just read through it again and think, “I am so glad that day is behind me.” Everything started in motion over the course of a few weeks before. I really just wasn’t happy with my job. I had a serious case of impostor syndrome, and I wasn’t picking up on it anywhere near as well as I expected that I should be. I started looking around for other work, just because I didn’t want to be a drain on my team, and I expected I would be more successful and happy with my performance back in the software development world. On Tuesday, I received a call as I was leaving work, with a job offer that I was really excited for. Unfortunately, I was scheduled to leave for Ardmore, OK...