I certainly hope most of the members have already read 1984, but then maybe that's too much to hope for. Best to have a backup plan, though.

Does this mean you actually finished the first book? We're all waiting with bated breath to hear how it ended!

Um, actually I don't know how it ended. With a funeral of course, but no idea what actually happened. Thankfully, nobody at the dinner noticed. The chocolate martinis made me ultra charming and effervescent.

My son broke his front tooth at age 11. We had a cap put on it. It lasted about a month. We had another cap put on it. That one lasted a bit longer but is now a partial cap, and is a different color than the rest of the tooth. I love irrelevantly commenting about my kids. I urge you to get the tooth crowned and I hope it lasts and looks beautiful. :) But, don't do the botox thing. That is a really weird and disturbing trend, I think. I am already starting to get little laugh lines and stuff and the heck with it. (37 years old)

Re 1984, gee, I hope the women in this club are not all so illiterate that they have not read it yet??? And if they refuse to read anything but chick lit, maybe you need to go off and start your own book club with people who have your literary taste.

having had naturally perfect teeth my whole life, i suddenly am faced with a tooth insurgency on my lower jaw. i am looking into getting plastic guards that slowy reposition teeth while one sleeps.

oh how vain i've become!

i think 1984 would be a wonderful book for them to read. there's even a romance in it! and a tad bit of sex, if memory serves.

Chocolate martinis.

That REALLY doesn't sound like a good idea.

Seconded re: the chocolate martinis, as I was telling Ms. E. last night - I get drunk at precise 18-year intervals, and choclate martinis were the cause of the most recent episode. But then when one is a near-teetotaller, one should probably take into account that the friend mixing one's drink may actually, you know, have an alcohol tolerance.

Anna: That one lasted a bit longer but is now a partial cap, and is a different color than the rest of the tooth. I love irrelevantly commenting about my kids.

Discolouration was the main reason I had to replace my fillings. Just a real pain in the ass overall. Hoping that veneers will solve my problem and give me a stunning (or perhaps more stunning) smile.

Oh, and botox is not something I'd consider. May change my mind when I'm older, but the concept is revolting right now.

Re 1984: At least one person in the book club hasnt read it, hoping for more.

DrDoug: Do you mean Invisilign? Bloody expensive, but effective.

Re chocolate martinis: yeah...they were surprisingly potent.

I assume these are vodka martinis.

I love my chocolate, and have a strong fondness for gin, but mixing them seems quite wrong.

And whoever confused the term "martini" with vodka and couldn't come up with a decent name needs to be forced to drink them with vermouth for the rest of their natural lives.

Also, for the book...

1984 *might* be a bit too popularly read. Maybe try Cat's Cradle.

chocolate martinis are fabulous! especially when some bombay sapphire and a little hazlenut liqueur is involved.

Nah, I'm with blue92 - gin and chocolate together are just WRONG. Actually, gin is just wrong, period.

Eva: for SHAME! do not speak such blasphemy in the house of Aqoul!

although, if one has a chocolate martini that isn't prepared well, i can understand why one would be put off by such things. properly prepared though... paradise!

E: am i right in assuming that the hostess of your book club knew how to make a good chocolate martini?

It had vodka and something nut-flavoured in it. And coffee. Perhaps 3-4 shots per drink.

We had them at a restaurant. $9 martinis, can you imagine?

My view of plastic surgery is somewhat the opposite of yours, though not extremely so. I'd never chastise someone for purely cosmetic work ( correction of genuine deformities excepted ), but most of the time I privately think it is throwing away good money. Nothing wrong with a few flaws. I have the same view of people dieing their grey away - I just don't get it.

That said I'd be fully on board with this one. A less invasive procedure that simultaneously corrects a perceived flaw that bothers you? Can't see any downside to that :).

Besides your crooked teeth truly are hideous. I'd quietly shudder inside every time you smiled.

Well...okay, I never noticed. But I'm sure if you pointed them out I could probably feign some revulsion :D.

Actually, gin is just wrong, period.

Agreed. It was the first thing I got horribly drunk on as a sophmore in High School. If I hadn't thrown up so much I probably would have died of alcohol poisoning. Can't stand the stuff to this day.

Yes, I meant I'd chastise someone for correcting genuine deformities and yes, I did mean "die" not "dye". We don't have enough genuine freaks in this day and age to be able to afford to waste any and people who kill themselves over there grey hair bemuse me.

*sigh*

I so suck.

$9 sounds quite reasonable for a chocolate martini. although... if you had it at a restauraunt with a low-quality bar, perhaps they weren't so good.

the bar/restauraunt with my favourite chocolate martini usually sells them for around $10-12 or $9 during happy hour.

Tamerlane – well, then hopefully it will amuse you further when I remind you that you are probably concerned with people who dye their hair. (Of which I am one – sadly I take after Dad, who was quite gray in his 20s, and I’m not ready to look like Dad, dammit!)

Also, re: hazelnut booze: Frangelico is the nectar of the Gods. But you should come visit sometime – it’s mango season, and I make a mean mango daiquiri. :-)

dear all,

a "vodka" martini ... ISN'T. martini is gin in a vermouth-ized cocktail glass and an olive or two. PERIOD.

vodka should be (a) unflavored and (b) drunk straight out of the freezer. preferably in "sto gramm" (100g = 10cl) units.

gin may also be mixed with tonic water & in that case be drunk preferably at sunset.

you barbarians.

GAKH.

--raf*

ps: for the book club - "reading lolita in tehran". or how about "persepolis 1 & 2"?

raf* - just sto gramm? What kind of Russian speaker are you?

(I managed to avoid drinking straight vodka by hanging out with nice North Caucasian boys rather than Slavs. Not that they avoided vodka, Islam or no Islam, but at least women weren't expected to keep up with them. Thank goodness!)

Hmm, rather a lot of gin fundamentalists about. However, I care not for neo-Salafimartini judgements.

Actually, I'm not even sure they used the word "martini" aside from the menu title. My drink was called Milan rushhour something something.

Eva: when and where?

Raf: vodka is, indeed, sacrilege in a martini. purists only whisper vermouth across the top of the glass or open a bottle of vermouth across the room. none of that swirling vermouth stuff!

Dr. Doug: Leningrad, a lovely half-falling-apart dorm on ul. Korablestroiteley, Vasilevskii Ostrov, fall 1989 (yes, I know it's St. Petersburg now, but I haven't been back to that fair city since, so it's still Leningrad in my mind).

E: you're beginning to sound like you actually enjoyed yourself!

Eva: no, i mean, when do we meet and where for those mango mixed drinks?

E: i'm no high-brow alcohol snob. i quite enjoy fermented date palm sap. can't quite remember the (tunisian) arabic word for it at the moment... basically, someone climbs a date palm, taps it at the top, collects sap, sets the sap in a bucket out in the sun for a while, and pours the result in used plastic water bottle containers. 1.5 litres usually sells for a tunisian dinar (~75 US cents) and is enough to get several people properly pissed. i was told it can also cause blindness. all i know is it tasted great and did the job! (fermented palm sap is viewed as a very poor drink that only the poorest and worst parts of society would even think of consuming. must be why the university professors i hung out with all loved the stuff)

Dr. Doug: whenenever, preferably after the H-1B cap for this year is hit and I can breathe again. Just have to run to the corner produce stand for a case of mangoes and a bag of limes - just let me know if you'll be in the neighborhood. :-)

Eva: excuse my ignorance. which neighborhood?

dear eva,

i spoke about "sto gramm" UNITS and didn't make any reference as to how many of those i drink in one setting. "sto gramm" is the normal unit for vodka drinking, just like in the u.s. context one speaks of a "shot" or a "double-shot".

dear drdougfir,

she lived in the street of the shipbuilders on vasilyev's island.

or was that not the neighborhood you meant?

--raf*

Raf: i was refering to her current 'hood.

shall we start a side conversation of our favourite vodkas and how much we despise main-stream western euro and american vodkas?

My current hood is the hood of all hoods, and it's been revealed recently in an Aqoul post. But if you're going to be in flyover country, let me know, and I'll see what we can work out via e-mail.

And raf* - the most hardcore drinker I ever knew didn't restrict himself to sto gramm at one shot. But then he's dead these days, so he may not be the greatest role model.

P.S. Avoid Dagestani cognac like the plague - you could degrease an engine with it.

likewise, avoid anything named Shmirnof or, for that matter, Absolute.

Eva: hmm. i'm afraid my current employer has me going in the oposite direction than the 'hood of all 'hoods. although, it could be argued that a few of the 'hoods i will be visiting are perhaps the 'hoods of all 'hood's 'hoods.

Favourite vodka: anything that doesn't make any of my friends suddenly want to chuck me out of their house while they listen to Jimi Hendrix and protest that nobody understands them.

> Hmm, rather a lot of gin fundamentalists about. However, I care not for neo-Salafimartini judgements.

Heh. Drinkers *do* have that ritualistic tendency, don't they? Actually the martini usage is merely an annoyance on my part due to the mild confusion of terminology. Fun to watch the comments come out, though.

I'm not really a purist. I frequently commit the grave 'sin' of putting ice in my scotch. And although there's a bottle of MacCallan waiting at home, I don't even mind a blend now and again...

You may want to go with vodka + bailey's. See what you think. I wouldn't call it a martini by any stretch, but it is savage.

I somehow managed to avoid martinis until just last year. I was pleasantly surprised by how good they are.
Anyway, funniest thing I ever heard about martinis was something someone posted on the Straight Dope years ago: that the Army joked that all you had to do was put a martini making kit into your standard survival kit for a soldier, because as soon as you start making one, someone will be along to show you the right way to do it.
As for me, I blithely put ice in my scotch, and drink both blended and not, and on and on. I should probably be burned at the stake, or at least mercilessly whipped. Heh.
Carry on...

Bint, ash m3ndksh qisa 3n l-banouk? I seem to recall a promised follow up. You know how much I love Saudi banks. I might to practice my bad vocabulary should you slack further, bint ashshaitan.

Ya Bou Flous, much sidetracked by real life, inshallah soon though, save your bad vocab, you know how delicate my sensitivities are. Besides, I do not drink so cannot numb the pain.