You Will Not Believe

Please Attend Sloshed School, an evening of drinking and a lecture about drinking

2012-01-16T18:00:14Z

Your bill of fare.

I will again be mixing cocktails and talking booze history at the Rendezvous on Tuesday, January 31st from 7:30 onward. Please join, for you MIGHT LEARN SOMETHING.

Before the Cocktail, there was the Toddy

If you did not attend the previous session, let me fill you in: Sloshed School is an evening of cocktails and cocktail history hosted by me, Matthew Latkiewicz. If you attend, you will receive a short lecture on a period of cocktail-dom as well as the opportunity to consume three special and classic cocktail recipes.

OK BUT SO this session will focus on two basic recipes in vogue before the invention of the cocktail - the Toddy and the Sling. The basics of this drink are spirit, sugar, water. I ask you: WHAT COULD BE BETTER?

Be smart! Remind yourself to attend by RSVPing to this event on Facebook.

The You Will Not Believe year end music mixes

2011-12-29T23:23:17Z

Rdio has changed my musical listening life and this change is reflected in this, my annual year-end music mix. Rdio is a subscription based music service (a la Spotify if you have tried that). This means you pay your 10 bucks per month and you can listen to whatever music you want on your computer or phone (if you have a fancy phone).

An important caveat: not *all* music is available on Rdio, but most of what I want I have been able to find.

Yes, it requires the Internet, and yes, if you cancel your subscription all that music goes away, BUT REALLY? Do you really need to own all your music? No. And do you listen to your music mostly in a cave away from 3g service? No. Rdio allows you to try music and explore without any upfront cost. It is wonderful.

As such, I have tried much more music this year and my year end mix spans 3 collections. You can stream them all directly from this page here. (This does require an Rdio account, but just sign up for the free version if you don't have one already.) Or, if you are savvy, you can download the audio files - and playlist .xml file - and import them into your iTunes library. Enjoy.

Fake audio walking tours of real places

2011-11-29T23:03:51Z

Today, I launched the You Will Not Believe Tour Company, fake audio walking tours of real places. The official announcement is below, but I assure you: YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE.

As much as I enjoy audio walking tours, however, it is high time we take this story-telling medium away from the museum and historical societies! I am proud to introduce the newly founded You Will Not Believe Tour Company - maker of totally fake audio walking tours of totally real places.

from the You Will Not Believe Tour Company Blog

Reading Notes, a paper based reading & note-taking system for notebook nerds

2011-11-22T14:00:12Z

As I am both a reader of paper books and a note-taker (also: on paper), I have many notebooks full of quotes and tangential musings cross-referenced with page numbers from books I am reading. But these notes are often mixed in with other types of notes; I rarely return to them and mostly can't find the notes for a particular book even if I want to. I continue to take notes while reading, however.

WELL THIS PROBLEM IS NOW RESOLVED. With my new line of Reading Notes, I can keep a special notebook for each paper-based book I read. AS SO:

Reading notes is an entirely paper based reading & note-taking system. Sold in a three-pack, you (or your hipster notebook friend) receive three envelopes (which attach to the inside cover of your book like a library checkout card envelope) and three notebooks. Each notebook has space for your reading data - when and where you began the book - and a personal rating system probably no one will ever see.

Do they work? SEE FOR YOURSELF - $12 for a pack of three.

Sloshed School, an evening of drinks and discussion

2011-11-15T03:09:48Z

I will be mixing cocktails and talking booze history at the Rendezvous next Tuesday, November 22 from 7:30 onward. Please join, for you MIGHT LEARN SOMETHING.

All your classic cocktails belong to us

The focus will be vermouth cocktails - of which the Martini and the Manhattan are two examples. Vermouth cocktails came of age in the 1880s and 90s. Cocktail drinkers and bartenders were looking for a way to soften the base spirit - your gins and whiskeys - without covering up the essential character like a punch or citrus based cocktail would.

OK BUT SO I will be talking about vermouth and mixing two early examples of the style: the Martinez (a sibling to the Martini) and the Saratoga (related to the Manhattan). These are wonderful drinks which YOU WILL ENJOY.

Be smart! Remind yourself to attend by adding this event to your calendar.

What is the drinking age of particular drinks?

2011-09-17T17:20:04Z

Friends, I am working on a piece of Internet writing about drinking age for booze-saturated column on Grub Street.

I do not mean drinking age in the legal sense however. I want to know what the proper drinking age is for particular kinds of drinks. For instance: you should obviously not be drinking a rusty nail under the age of 60. Similarly, you should stop drinking anything with cranberry in it at the age of 29.

I tell you about this upcoming piece before it is written because I need your help. What are some drinks you think have a particular age range associated with them? Or, do you have any unspoken rules you think govern age and alcohol choice?

Respond in the comments or contact me directly if you would like to play along.

P.S. if you would like to know how to make a rusty nail - there is no better instructor for it than this fellow:

"Doing Your Work" hands on training for productivity nerds and newbies

2011-09-08T15:05:31Z

Announcement! The next meeting of my productivity cult will be Tuesday, September 13th, 7 PM until 9PM. We meet at The Thrive Project in beautiful downtown Turners Falls, MA. (Here is a map.)

This session, Part 3, will be a hands on training of how to implement David Allen's GTD system in your life, schedule and workflow. I will take volunteers from the audience and we will work through their workflow right before your very eyes.

The goal of this session will on how to fit the techniques of extreme productivity into your actual and very real life.

If you would like to volunteer ahead of time, please contact me.

What is your productivity cult?

My productivity cult is called Doing Your Work and heavily cribs from the work of David Allen's GTD, Merlin Mann's Inbox Zero, and the Pomodoro Technique.

We discuss strategies and concepts to help folks figure out what they need to do and then do it with complete focus; all the while being less freaked out and harried all the time.

Adam Lisagor knows how to do your work.

Also, as it is a cult, we all have beards and wild looks in our eyes.

How do I join your cult?

Come to Thrive next Tuesday, Sept. 13th at 7PM.

Also, work on your wild eyed look at home in the mirror. You won't be turned away if you have totally normal looking eyes, but let's just say you'll be rewarded if you do.

See you there, I hope.

From the archives: Replacing the word love in love poems with the word Batman

2011-08-10T20:04:33Z

Photo by ewen and donabel

It's been over three years since I ran the first Love Poem Project, in which take a love poem and replace the word love with another word. I was asked to read this poem at a wedding; and I couldn't believe how many times the word love was in it. So in my head, I pretended I was saying Batman. Still funny to me.

“On Batman” by Thomas Kempis (Here's the original, in which the author has taken the word Batman and replaced it with the word love.)

Batman is a mighty power,
a great and complete good.
Batman alone lightens every burden, and makes rough places smooth.
He bears every hardship as though it were nothing, and renders
all bitterness sweet and acceptable.

Nothing is sweeter than Batman,
Nothing stronger,
Nothing higher,
Nothing wider,
Nothing more pleasant,
Nothing fuller or better in heaven or earth; for Batman is born of God.

Batman flies, runs and leaps for joy.
He is free and unrestrained.
Batman knows no limits, but ardently transcends all bounds.
Batman feels no burden, takes no account of toil,
attempts things beyond his strength.

Batman sees nothing as impossible,
for he feels able to achieve all things.
He is strange and effective,
while those who lack Batman faint and fail.

Batman is not fickle and sentimental,
nor is he intent on vanities.
Like a living flame and a burning torch,
he surges upward and surely surmounts every obstacle.

How smart are beer nerds about their beer?

2011-07-01T16:43:02Z

photo courtesy of Grub Street

I recently wrote about some common beer nerd trivia over at grubstreet.com. I wanted to know if some things I took for granted about beer - bottles are better than cans! - were indeed true.

As part of that, I asked you to test your beer nerd knowledge.

If you haven't taken that test, or read the column on Grub Street, I encourage you to STOP EVERYTHING and do that know.

TURNS OUT that bottles are not better than cans FYI.

But if you have done those things - please see how the beer nerds fared.

But are these answers right? Go READ THE ARTICLE.

Test your beer knowledge

2011-06-27T03:26:18Z

Photo courtesy of quinn.anya

Test Your Beer Knowledge by Filling out this form.