Teacher's Highland Cream: Good blended whisky for less than $20

I used to hate scotch, whisky, whiskey, bourbon (well, still do) and anything else that tasted of alcohol from many years of being a bouncer and ejecting free booze on a weekly basis.

Then I had Lagavulin 16.  Just fantastic.  Of course, even on a crazy sale it's $50.   And more typically is $62 (plus tax).

So I've been on the lookout for good, cheap liquid that is vaguely like a great single malt.

Perhaps one of the smoothest, easiest to drink blended whisky is Teachers "Highland Cream."  It really is very easy to drink.  I bought this bottle earlier today and already got through about 1/5th of it while watching Top Gear w/o noticing.  (Notice the empty glass, which was a constant source of irritation.)

I'm going to put it down a floor so I don't interact with it further (the high cost to society of alcoholism, the unlikelihood of me hitting PRs as a boozehound, etc) but I really could easily drink the entire bottle.  And then probably do something stupid that costs much more than $20.

The good: it has a vanilla/honey/something scent and taste that I really like.  There seems to be a set of blended whiskys --- Johnnie Walker Gold, Chivas 18 and Teacher's --- that have this smell and taste and I'm really a sucker for them.  (To be honest, it might just be the nose of well-tempered grain alcohol.)    This is below Chivas 18 and both are below JW Gold (one of my favorites, neat and at room temperature) but it's very drinkable.

The bad: there is a slight odor of grain alcohol.  Perhaps a slight taste too, if I pay attention.  A bit of water (or ice) seems to kill that.  I'm going to pour 1/2 Highland 10 single malt from Trader Joe's (also $20) into the next glass to see if that mellows it better.

I only bought it b/c so many different whisky blogs recommended it as a good value / cheap / best buy bottle.  They were right.  I much prefer it over Famous Grouse, Finlaggan, and the usual budget booze recs.

Actionable advice in case of nuclear explosion

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/16/science/16terror.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Suppose the unthinkable happened, and terrorists struck New York or another big city with an atom bomb. What should people there do? The government has a surprising new message: Do not flee. Get inside any stable building and don’t come out till officials say it’s safe.

 The advice is based on recent scientific analyses showing that a nuclear attack is much more survivable if you immediately shield yourself from the lethal radiation that follows a blast, a simple tactic seen as saving hundreds of thousands of lives. Even staying in a car, the studies show, would reduce casualties by more than 50 percent; hunkering down in a basement would be better by far.

Whiskey party.

One way to spend a few hours on a saturday: sampling from several thousands dollars worth of scotch (mostly not mine).

Various conclusions:

• Laphroaig 30 is great but not worth $300.
• Oban distiller's edition is one of my favorites.  About $70 from the cheapest online store.
• I like Caol Ila 12 and 18 alot, but don't care much for the other 4 samples I had
• The Macallan 12 from 10 years ago is crazy good compared to what they release now.
• Glenfarcias 10 is pretty smooth and not that expensive.
• Master of Malt has a really nice selection of samples (http://www.masterofmalt.com/drinks-by-the-dram/).   They charge in british pounds, however, so not the greatest exchange rate.
• Google's droid phone has a cool feature where you can take a picture of a bar code and it will look up that item on the net, finding the cheapest price (I paid $100 for the oban above, it found it for $67).

Here's my friend, looking a bit worse for wear, but well neigh invincible behind a fortress of scotch bottles.

$20 trader joes highland 10 single malt is actually...

Pretty damn good, at least for the price.  Smooth.  I've drank a quarter bottle in two days without meaning to.  Short finish, not super complex, but cheap.

Their $9.99 blended scotch on the other hand is undrinkable.  The main smell you get upon opening in rubbing alcohol.

XM2010

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/12/snipers-will-soon-shoot-taliban-from-a-quarter-mile-away/

Starting next year, the snipers will be outfitted with the XM2010 rifle, capable of hitting a target from a 3,937-foot distance — about three quarters of a mile. The current sniper rifle, the M-24, has a range of 2,625 feet, by contrast. “You want to give guys the capability to do those things they need to do at those ranges,” Colonel Douglas Tamilio, the Army’s weapons program manager, told USA Today.

The craziest rifle ever: XM25

Range find w/ laser.  Pull trigger.  Mini grenades explode by target (which means shrapnel goes around corners, behind walls, etc).  Grenade figures how how far it's gone by counting rotations.  You can manually adjust the range.

Being used in Afganistan


Info from  wikipedia:

The XM25 is an airburst grenade launcher derived from the XM29 OICW.

It fires 25 mm grenades that are set to explode in mid-air at or near the target. A laser rangefinder in the gun is used to determine the distance to the target. The user can manually adjust the detonating distance by up to ten feet (3 m) shorter or longer. The gun automatically transmits the detonating distance to the grenade in the firing chamber. The grenade tracks the distance it has traveled by the number of spiral rotations after it is fired.^[1] These features make the XM25 more effective than traditional grenade launchers at the task of hitting targets that are behind cover or dug into the ground.

The system has been developed by Heckler & Koch and Alliant Techsystems, while the target acquisition/fire control is developed by L-3 IOS Brashear. The most recent deployment plans call for a purchase of 12,500 XM25s at a projected cost per weapon system of $25,000.^[2]

In the summer of 2010, the U.S. Army began field testing the XM25 in Afghanistan. The initial per unit cost of the early models range from $30,000 to $35,000. The army plans to purchase 12,500 XM25s in 2011 and have them fielded by 2012, enough for one XM25 system in each infantry squad and Special Forces team. ^[3][4]

According to U.S. Army project manager for new weapons, Colonel Douglas Tamilio, the rounds for the XM25 will cost about $24 apiece. ^[5]