Did you know you can buy a can of gin martini?

I was in a liquor store in Woods Hole, MA, yesterday, looking for something to drink on the ferry ride over to the Vineyard.  To be honest I never considered a single serving can of gin martini as a possible option, but there it was in the cooler next to the 40 oz beers.

The can is 200 ml (a little less than 7 ounces, and about the same size as a martini glass), and already has vermouth in it according to the label.

Normally gin is 40% alcohol, but this "martini" says it's 23%.  So what else is in there?  When you make a martini in a bar and shake it up with ice it gets watered down, so I guess in this case they just put the water right in there for you?

I didn't buy it, but now I'm kind of wishing I did.  Who knows, it might have been the best $2.50 I've spent in a long time...

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Seriously NBA? Four days between games?

Eventually this arena will be full again...

Last night at work I scrolled through the channels trying to find something to put on the TV's in the bar.  Since the Pacers and Heat played on Tuesday, I figured they'd be at it again on Thursday, as its customary in the NBA for teams to have one day off in between games.

Well, they weren't.  And they're not playing tonight either.  Game 3 isn't till tomorrow, four days after Game 2.  The same is true of the West finals, where the Spurs and Thunder took the floor Wednesday, and not again until Sunday.

What are you doing NBA?  Obviously the league has decided it's worth disrupting it's normal patterns in order to televise these games on the weekend, but why?  Are people any more likely to watch on Saturday and Sunday night's then Thursday or Friday?  Don't humans tend to go out on Saturday nights?  There's a reason networks don't have any good shows on Saturdays.  And don't most people watch Game of Thrones on Sunday's at the moment?

I would maybe understand if the games were on in the afternoons, but they're not.  This especially makes no sense considering it's on a long holiday weekend, and the beginning of spring at that. (RELATED: Why does football season start so early?  No need for it to still be summer...)

There is another factor that comes into play; the league decided long ago that the Finals will begin on Thursday June 5, and now the Conference Finals have to last long enough to get there.  Does that really need to be a date chosen in advance though?  Do any NBA fans even know or care when the Finals start without looking it up?  I'm pretty sure people will still watch even if they can't mark it on their calendars months ahead of time.    


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Sizemometer Update: Red Sox center fielders can't hit, but at least Jacoby Ellsbury is slumping too

The Red Sox have used two different options in their attempt to replace Jacoby Ellsbury in center field, Jackie Bradley Jr. and Grady Sizemore.  Combined Bradley Jr. and Sizemore are batting just .195 this season while playing the position.  You can read more about the Sox center field issues and what they could've done differently in my Bleacher Report article Offseason Moves the Boston Red Sox Should Have Made Going into 2014.

The silver lining here for Boston fans is that Ellsbury has been struggling mightily in New York of late as well.  On May 3rd he was hitting .346.  But since then he's gone 7-55 (.127) to drop his season average down to .272.  Ellsbury also has just one stolen base in that time.


About the "Sizemometer"


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If you're drinking vodka-soda cause it's "low in calories," maybe don't order mac n' cheese with it

I've decided to make it my mission to educate the world on the fact that you can't drink alcohol without consuming calories.

Light beer has fewer calories than regular beer because it has less alcohol in it.

If you drink liquor, whatever you choose to combine it with is generally a fairly insignificant addition in the long run.  In a bar the standard ratio of alcohol to mixer is 50/50 (plus a lot of ice, zero calories).  The 1.5 oz of vodka in you're screwdriver has roughly 100 calories, while the 1.5 oz of OJ you get with it is only about 20 more.

Last night a women came into my bar and said "I'll have a vodka-soda, it has the least calories, right?"  I started to explain how it didn't really matter, but she cut me off and said "Well it has less than a beer, right?"

While I wanted to correct her on misusing the word "less" and also tell her that it depended on which beer she ordered, the experienced bartender in me knows that's a terrible idea.  But a few minutes later I struggled from laughing out loud when she put in her food order (Sobieski is a brand of vodka):

To be fair, she was ordering food for two people, but even the cauliflower is covered with cheese...


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The NBA draft lottery is tonight, and it's OK if the Celtics don't win

Statistically the single most likely option for Boston is the #6 pick overall.  That would be mildly disappointing, but not in any way disastrous.  Here's the explanation of my though process from Celtics Life a few weeks ago:

NBA draft lottery odds for every team; a look at the Celtics' options

This year is considered to be a very deep draft, and a player taken in the 6-8 range could easily become a superstar.  It's happened many times in the past; take a look at one of the hottest articles on Bleacher Report right now (yes, I wrote it):

The Top 10 NBA Draft Lottery Steals of All Time
(it includes multiple members of the Celtics most recent title-winning team)

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Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt star in "Future Groundhog Day" (Edge of Tomorrow)

Here's a trailer for Edge of Tomorrow, which hits theaters June 6:

"Future Groundhog Day" looks pretty cool to me.  At first I though the only difference from the original was that instead of Bill Murray trying to get Andie MacDowell to sleep with him, Tom Cruise is trying to save the world.  But then I realized that Emily Blunt has that living every day over and over again thing going on too, which is a nice little twist.

I'm guessing weatherman Phil Connors would have been a lot happier with his predicament had there been a hot chick nearby suffering from the same fate.  Imagine how much fun they could have had together?  I doubt they ever would have even bothered to end the "curse" or whatever it was by becoming better people and eventually waking up the day after Groundhog Day.

If I were Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt I'd probably just ditch this whole war/trying to save the world dilemma, and instead enjoy each other and being able to do whatever I wanted and still come back to life again.




RELATED:  That Justin Timberlake movie "In Time" kind of wasted itself by just being "Future Robin Hood"


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NBA conference finals inspired Awesome Not Really Old at All But Extremely Funny Song(s) of the Week

It's a very bizarre situation that Indiana has home court advantage against Miami, but is also an overwhelming underdog (although the left for dead Pacers have amazingly shown signs of life since banishing Andrew Bynum).  Anti-Heat fans can find hope in the fact that no matter what happens, Miami can't open the Finals at home either.

ABC/ESPN has been running this NBA Countdown show intro for a while, but I only just saw it for the first time:




This part with Bill Simmons and Jalen Rose cracked me up, and immediately made me think of...

From 2009, Cool Guys Don't Look at Explosions:





Which brings to mind The Lonely Island's I'm on a Boat:





And of course the immortal 2006 classic Dick In a Box:
(Spanish subtitles free of charge)



The Lonely Island & Justin Timberlake - Dick In A Box (Subtitulado Español).


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