What do you think of when you think of luxury? It's a strange thing to define in the wealthier parts of the world in the 21st century seeing as so many elements of comfort have become de rigueur in most places. If you went into a hotel room and found anything less than hot and cold running water, an in-suite toilet, electric lights, climate control and a telephone, would you consider it proper lodging? These days, of course not, but for the first fifty or so years of its run the original Savoy Hotel in London was considered a place of innovation for being the first hotel to implement all of those things in its standard rooms. Indeed, the very things we have come to associate with hotels began at the Savoy, mostly between 1900 and 1945. It opened in 1889 as a companion to the famous Savoy Theatre where the wildly successful musicals of Gilbert and Sullivan premiered. It was a favorite leisure destination for such people as Oscar Wilde and Charlie Chaplain. Monet and Whistler made paintings of the view outside their windows there. But for our purposes, the most notable celebrity associated with the Savoy in London is Ada Coleman, the woman who first presided over the Savoy's illustrious bar.

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Nathan Crowe, who insisted we call him "Nate", is a freight driver with the Denver Woodwork Company. We hadn't scheduled a meeting with him but we struck up a conversation at a fuel station in the outskirts of Chicago and he had plenty of interesting things to tell us about life in the Federation of Free States.

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Long Island Ice-Tea SoapAt the end of a long, hard night drinking out on the town, it’s likely that you will have at least some alcohol on your body, your top, your jeans,  your purse, your man-bag, your Iphone, your Ipad, or whatever else you might happen to have with you. If you aren’t going out, however, and would like to pretend that you’ve been out for a wild night on the town in order to impress your friends, you can now use Zirh’s booze-inspired scented soaps.


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The capitol city of Sacramento, California comes alive during the summer with the California Musical Theater and Music Circus back to back musical productions.

One of my personal favorites Oklahoma! is currently playing (July 27 - August 1).

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life after IP Address DoomsdayPut on your party hats, pop the cork on that bottle of Dom Perignon, tell your boss to go consummate his relationship with his fountain pen and break out that emergency reserve of cocaine-dusted hookers because we've hit an Internet milestone. Well, at least we're about to. In just a few months (by current estimates from very estimate-y people) we're going to run out of IP addresses. For all ya'll who live out in the sticks, that means we're short on the numbers, dots and magicals that make the glowy think-box work. That's right, while there is a functionally infinite variety of domain names for use on the Internet, there's a very limited number of meaningful device addresses that actually allow your computer to access all that porn and pirated music, and probably some business-related stuff, too.

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Tomorrow, July 24, is the day everyone gets to sigh with collective relief because they don’t have to come up with new jokes to entertain people with. Okay, maybe those of us who aren’t comedians don’t really lose sleep over such things, but there is a joy in recycling old jokes, isn’t there?

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Over the past decade American air travel has become a pretty daunting task. What was once a mode of luxury and leisure has become a heavily trafficked and frequently esoteric experience. There's a ritual to making it through airport security smoothly and a number of ways to avoid the most common headaches of traveling by air. Here are a few tips for becoming a real pro of the plane experience.

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It's hot. It's damn hot. It's summer, so that means there's little to do in the off hours but sweat and long for air conditioning. It's hard to get into a mood for booze when there's so much heat outside. Never mind that alcohol actually drops one's core body temperature, just one nip will bring on a little too much mercury for these dog days. So, how can you get away with downing the fire water when it's blazing in the shade? Well, you can dip deep into the classic cocktail book or you can get creative.

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Today is Independence Day in the United States, a holiday when we yankee folks recall our country's successful bid for autonomy from our colonial rulers in the English crown over 200 years ago. It's a day to celebrate liberty and all the things we love about our nation. While there are a lot of things to appreciate about America (its dense cross-section of different cultures, its unparalleled contribution to the art of film and its varied landscape to name a few), one of my personal favorite things about our sovereign union is its most popular native liquor: Bourbon whiskey. A lot of cultures have a unique variety of whiskey to their claim and it's for that reason that America has bourbon today. Many of our 18th century immigrants were of Scottish and Irish descent, so they brought their craft for whiskey making with them to these shores. There's a very interesting history to just how bourbon became the whiskey Americans know and love today. It involves war, two great historical figures and a staple of American agriculture.

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I'm a devout admirer of the traditional Margarita made with fresh squeezed lime juice, quality tequila, and Grand Marnier. But at this time of year, with all the lovely fresh locally grown strawberries that are available just about everywhere, it's time to think about a hand-made strawberry Margarita. If you're going to do this right, it means getting the highest quality ingredients that are possible. To begin with, that means fresh, ripe, sweet strawberries that taste fabulous on their own. If you wouldn't eat them, don't use them in a Margarita. The tequila needs to be something along the lines of Cuervo 1800, if possible. If not, make sure it's 100% agave. There are some very good imported tequilas from tiny labels, and they're worth trying, but always check to make sure it's 100% agave.

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