December 15, 2008: Robert Carlyle Onboard, Earl Carl binder Scaramungous, and My Booziest Post Ever! - Joseph Mallozzi's Weblog

Journey to the Center of the Liquor Cabinet. Round One: The butterscotch schnapps is a key ingredient in a drink called The Oatmeal Cookie, while a shot of Galliano serves to make any vanilla-based ice cream that more delectable. Not sure about the Mango liqueur but will vouch for the Advokaat, eggnog liqueur. The hazelnut-flavored Frangelico is as close you can get to drinking spirited nutella. The bottle on the very right - not sure what that is. Anybody?

Round Two: Some sort of blueberry ice wine, a cappuccino cream liqueur, Poire Wiliams with an actual poire in the bottle, the Maple liqueur that was all the rage at our last big do, and the Limoncello lemon liqueur that my mother favors.

Round Three: Creme de Cassis which is a blackcurrant liqueur, a lychee liqueur, a seemingly popular plum port, Absinthe (wasn't this stuff banned at one point?) and, of course, the staple of every liquor cabinet - the creme de banane.

Round four: You got your white chocolate liqueur, your Amaretto cream and, over on the end, a hand-bottled rum Marty G.'s brother brought back from Jamaica. Beside it is a Korean liquor (haven't a clue). My favorite though is the root beer schnapps. I'm saving it for when my 8 year old nephew comes to visit!

As some of you may have heard, the wonderfully talented Robert Carlyle has signed on to join the crew of the Destiny in the upcoming Stargate: Universe series. The award-winning actor – Begbie from Trainspotting to some, Hamish Macbeth to others – will be playing the role of SGU’s Dr. David Rush, the ship’s brilliant Machiavellian scientist. I see a lot of myself in Rush and, next to yours truly of course, I can’t imagine anyone better for the part. Contrary to initial reports, the Rush character is not the leader of the unplanned expedition. That honor falls to Colonel Everett Young. For now. But things could have a way of changing on board a ship manned by a disparate group with very different agendas…

If you’d like to participate in the “Which of the following Stargate: Universe supporting characters has the potential to be the next big break-out Stargate Fan Favorite?” poll, check out yesterday’s poll for the link. Last time I checked, Riley was running away with it while poor Henry was bringing up the rear.

Well, with the holidays almost upon us, it’s time to take stock of things like your finances, your relationships, and, most important of all, your liquor cabinets. Ours, for instance, was running kind of low and, with Lawren scheduled to housesit for us while we’re away in Montreal, I thought it best to top off the selection. I mean, the last thing I want is to come home from my Christmas holidays to discover all the mouthwash has been finished. And so, ever in the search for the new, the weird, and the interesting, I picked up an interesting assortment of spirits, liquors, and liquid stunners this afternoon. To be honest, I’m not much of a drinker, excluding the occasional glass of wine with dinner or odd hollowed skullful of ceremonial mead, but these purchases look so interesting that I may have to put together a special Weird Food Purchase of the Day: Liquored Up edition in which I sample a shot from each bottle. The running commentary on that one should be priceless if not inevitably incoherent.

Hey, check it out. Among the important tasks I accomplished today, in addition to completing work on the Stargate: Atlantis movie outline and re-reading what will be the big SGU opener, was the creation of my very own James Bond villain. Yep, head on over to the Times Online for the opportunity to assemble your own personalized Bond baddie, then have the random generator come up with a suitably nefarious name for your work of genius. Mine is called Earl Carl binder Scaramungous. Okay, granted, he sounds like a sub-species of the beetle family, but there’s no denying he is one scary-looking fellow:

http://www.beabondbaddie.com/ViewFace.aspx?faceid=ad2bb0d8-f7ef-490c-9251-23562150583b