Someone on the xkcd forums pointed me in the direction of an interesting piece of web fiction. Wikihistory

It's an interesting concept. For two reasons, actually.

The idea of a society of time travelers organizing themselves through a wiki is simply hilarious if you've ever lurked on the discussion pages. Given the sort of debates that arise about whether or not Scientology is a cult, or whether or not waterboarding is torture, I can only begin to imagine the debates about what sort of tinkering with the past is to be allowed, or whose tinkering ought be undone.

Moreover, this use of internet communique to form a narrative intrigues me. Way back when we first learned the basic forms of fiction narrative, one of the styles was "Diary/Letters." At this stage in the web's progression (I'm calling it Web 2.1, which is to denote that everyone's fucking tired of calling it Web 2.0 by now) there are countless forms of communication that could be mocked up to form a narrative. Hell, I've been trying for a long time to come up with a way to sculpt IM conversations in a way that makes it possible to read for a novella's length without making the reader wish for death, or, if they're more positive minded, put down the fucking book for good.

It occurs to me that there's some fertile veins to be mined here, and potentially some T-shirt cash to be made if it's done properly. I shall think more on this.

......

The other night I was at a sort of cocktail party with some internet people. When my training as a bartender came out, I was put in charge of mixing for a significant period of time. That my Cyanide Martini had become a hit only further cemented this. Anyway, long story short, as the night went on I started experimenting, and came up with something that I and others found to be delicious, but couldn't come up with a name for.

It consists of

2 parts applejack (any strong apple brandy will suffice, but the stuff I was using was 100 proof)
1 part gin
2 dashes bitters
squirt of lime

Keeping track of one's drink total by normal means at an affair such as this is an exercise in futility. Chances are you'll be called upon at least once to finish someone's drink because they decided they didn't like it or had enough. The measurements of the spirits themselves are imprecise, and all in all chances are you're going to lose count irrespective of the confusion. And chances are you didn't know that one martini counts as between two and a half and three drinks


The only honest way to figure it all out is to know how long it takes your liver to filter out one drink, and make a note of it when the last effects have left your system. For me, that was about 4 PM the next day. To be fair, the party wasn't over until about 4 AM. Still, I'm not quite sure what that means.

I will say that the 6 mile walk home was interesting.