Oh, heh. Baron Willrad von Doomington sent me these questions back in April. Whoops.
Waffle House seems to serve as a convenient marker for the North/South cultural divide. Will they spread northward (or recede southward) as the cultures integrate (or clash), or is this divide permanent and immovable? In short: will the North ever get their hash browns scattered, smothered, and covered?
Probably not. In fact, I recently read an interview with one of the founders (I don’t recall if it was Joe Rogers or Tom Forkner) that they purposefully stay out of the snow belt.
When I win my Mega Millions, however, I will totally open one in Chicago, their wishes be damned.
Being the Chief Engineer of the American Booze Council, have you ever considered building a still and distilling your own boozes? What would you make?
I have considered it, actually. It ain’t rocket surgery. You just need something with alcohol in it, a boiler and a condenser. Put stuff in the boiler, heat it to at least 78.5°C and relatively pure alcohol comes dribblin’ out the condenser. Repeat a few times and you can get it mighty strong.
Should I ever engage in this activity, I think it would be naught but blasphemy if I did not make my own corn liquor to honor my heritage.
Smokes: awesome, or completely awesome? Why? Do you ever plan to quit?
Awesome and repels noxious self-righteous non-smokers at the same time! I believe Kurt Vonnegut Jr. said it best, “The public health authorities never mention the main reason many Americans have for smoking heavily, which is that smoking is a fairly sure, fairly honorable form of suicide.”
I’m sure I’ll quit in some capacity at some point. Sometimes I switch to cigars or to my pipe. Sometimes I don’t smoke at all for weeks.
Can biodiesel save us from the coming Peak Oil Wars, or is it just an expensive way to produce french-fry-smellin’ exhaust and self-satisfaction?
In its current state, no, it can’t ever save us from the coming Peak Oil Wars. Any fuel that competes with food crops is not going to work. Using it, however, shows a demand for alternative fuels and the only way we’re going to be able to get to second-generation biofuels. 2nd gen fuels can be made from damn near any organic matter – corn stover, wood chips, lawn clippings, rotting fruit, human bodies – and the cracking process can be tailored to produce whatever fuel you want. 60 cetane zero sulfur diesel fuel from what I was gonna throw out yesterday? Sign me up. If anything, 2nd gen biofuels will be less energy intensive than current biodiesel (~3:1 NROEI) or ethanol (~1.3:1 NROEI) production since you won’t have to use nearly as much fertilizer or good arable land to compete with food crops.
If you had one coupon good for One (1) Night Kickin’ Back And Drinkin’ Beers with any living person, who would it be? Similary: how about a coupon allowing the bearer to administer One (1) Ass-beatin’ Yelldown Warhellride?
Crapola, you pigeonholed me into living folk.
1. Chillin’ & Hell of Drinkin – David Lynch. I enjoy his films and every interview I’ve ever seen with him, he seems like a nice enough guy with all sorts of wild stuff in his head. Even if we just hung out at the Bob’s Big Boy he frequented and had hell of coffee and got all hopped up on sugar & caffeine to hear his weird ideas, awesome.
2. Thrashin’ Within An Inch of His/Her/Its Life – Dick Cheney. No explanation necessary.
