OK, back to beverages. I want your thoughts on the following question: is it manly to drink hard apple cider?

If you like, you may separate drinking it at home from drinking it in bars.

I have this on my mind because the pub near my office recently put in a Strongbow tap. I didn't notice it until I was on my way out, but it made me thirsty. I like the stuff on a hot day.

You can tell that cider makers think there's still a subliminal gender issue with their product -- they try to compensate with names like "Strongbow" and posters like that one of the Cider Jack guy (I like to call him "the Worker," with apologies to Ernst Juenger) flexing his huge apple-bicep.

It's an English drink [FN *] that also has amiable American associations. The colonists swam in the stuff. I read an estimate that in Massachusetts in 1767, the average consumption of cider was 1.14 barrels per capita.

Thinking about cider reminds me that I never bought Michael Pollan's popular book on plants and culture, The Botany of Desire. Pollan has a fascinating riff on the wildfire spread of apples in frontier America, which I read in excerpted form in Harper's or the Atlantic (can't recall which) a few years ago. -- the fruit was not only one of the few sources of cherished sweetness in the frontier diet, but it was also a ready source of intoxicating drink! Pollan tells us that far from being a milquetoast figure from elementary school textbooks, Johnny Appleseed was in reality "an American Dionysus."

OK, I just one-clicked Pollan's book.

So: cider. Manly or not so?

[FN *]: Is that still true? Is cider consumption high in your average London pub?

(kicks off shoes, affixes baseball cap)

I'll try to keep things semi-decorous while the proprietor's away.

Let's get back to classic coin-op games. Why has nobody ever tried to resurrect the 80s arcade? With beer on tap. Sort of a retro-themed Jillian's / Dave & Buster's.

We live in a culture drenched and permeated with 80s nostalgia. Listen to FM radio, man! I'm starting to think my generation (loosely speaking) will still be listening to "Tainted Love" and "I Melt With You" in 2033.

So it's bizarre that there hasn't been a comparable resurgence of 80s videogame culture. It would be no trouble to contact the manufacturers and duplicate the old CPUs and ROMs, as is widely demonstrated by (ahem) certain emulator services.

I know that today you can sometimes find an old Ms. Pac-Man or Galaga machine at the local bar or greasy spoon, and that's cool, but I'm talking about something on a different scale. I mean several dozen games. Spy Hunter, Gauntlet, Tron, Tempest, 1943, Jungle Hunt, Q*Bert, the works. Plus beer; I think I mentioned that.

And then the inevitable New Wave music.

It seems to me that this would be a clever piece of Gen X/Y marketing. Everyone (okay, everyone male and inclined to nerdishness) in the 25-35 age bracket remembers these games. Nostalgia 80s titles like "Namco Arcade" do a solid business on home videogame systems, proving that there's a demand.

i'm away for a few days. have fun with plainsman!

Hah! I trump your video link with... Makeup Alley! Also a time-wasting cultural resource. Cept for girls!

Almay's Kinetin got rid of my under-eye circles. Sleep no longer necessary.

{Listening to: Get Down On It - Kool And The Gang - The Ultimate Celebration [UK]}

Say, Alice, if you're looking for funky links, how about one for the Killer List of Videogames?

http://klov.com

I know we're veering off into geekdom, but this is an amazing time-wasting cultural resource. Thousands of entries. I discovered it back when I was a summer associate and soon had to impose an iron no-visit-at-work rule, which remains in effect.

Its archival coverage emphasizes the classic period 1980-1990. Cosmic Avenger. Sinistar. Karate Champ. Double Dragon II. Strider. Sweet, sweet nectar.

(I think this Y-chromosome post nicely balances the preceding one about dusky purple sheets.)

Does Westlaw have a link builder like Lexis has a link builder? Actually, I am certain the answer is yes, because I've used it before, but I can't find it. Westlaw technical assistance is too incompetent to help me (they've been working on it for about for days now).

{Listening to: Get Down, Make Love - Nine Inch Nails - Sin}

This weekend I decided that I was in need of new sheets. So, I went to Filene's and dropped $40 on a set of 240 thread count sheets. Sueded sateen finish, in dusky purple. Forty bucks. For a set of twin sheets. That's just obscene.

But they feel so good.

{Listening to: Enjoy the Silence - Depeche Mode - Violator}

even more sexxxy bloggers. (post to go with it here, but garrett is in the middle, sasha is on the right).

cheerio!