I like to write. I journal. I blog. I don't do either enough. I write, sometimes, for my day job. (But, writing for government contract deliverables—and who else even talks like that?—is something completely different, and can be life-sucking to a writer. But, I digress.) I just can't seem to schedule a regular time to write, and this bugs me. So, I need to find a way.

All that to point to an excellent column by Kurt Vonnegut. If I read this correctly, he wrote it in 1999. It popped up on a newsreader and I am pointing it out to you. It is How to Write With Style.

If you write, please read it (it is very short). His summary:

1. Find a subject you care about
2. Do not ramble, though
3. Keep it simple
4. Have guts to cut
5. Sound like yourself
6. Say what you mean
7. Pity the readers

As I have previously mentioned, a gin Martini is my drink of choice, up with an olive. I prefer Gordon's, not because it is Bond's gin of choice (and anyway, the Gordon's of the original novels' time was a higher proof), but because I like the taste. I do enjoy other cocktails at times.

Another favorite is a gin Gimlet. A very nice cocktail, made with 2 oz. of gin and 3/4 oz. of Rose's Lime Juice. There are sweeter versions, but this is the ratio I prefer. (In Raymond Chandlers The Long Goodbye,Terry Lenox tells Philip Marlowe A real Gimlet is half gin and half Roses Lime Juice...") Again, very cold, up with a lime quarter.

And when I am in a very quiet, contemplative mood, it's a Vesper. In the novel Casino Royale, Bond ordered thusly:

"Three measures of Gordon's, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it's ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon peel.

Alas, you can't get Kina Lillet anymore and that's arguably a lot of booze.

I go with the recipe in my signed hardcover copy of Cocktail: The Drinks Bible for the 21st Century by Paul Harrington.

• 2 oz. Gordon's gin
• 1 oz vodka (I don't care what kind)
• 1/2 oz. Lillet blanc
• a dash of bitters (to simulate the Kina Lillet and to give a light pink glow)

Right, not really. Previously, I blogged about 'Big Bang' project put off to 2008. Well, holy moley, it is 2008 and time is running out! So, I was amused by Some fear debut of powerful atom-smasher. ("Atom-smasher." I like it.) "Obviously, the world will not end when the LHC switches on," said project leader Lyn Evans.

But, what really got me laughing is:

David Francis, a physicist on the collider's huge ATLAS particle detector, smiled when asked whether he worried about black holes and hypothetical killer particles known as strangelets.

"If I thought that this was going to happen, I would be well away from here," he said.

Well, really how far away could one get from the Earth being swallowed by Switzerland? (And no, I don't really think CERN will cause a black hole. Just the same, imagine the insurance they have to carry!)

Every meeting can start with a contest. Everyone "plays" or demonstrates what his or her phone sounds like when it "rings." The one with the most obnoxious one wins. Second place wins for the most embarrassing. These ratings are assigned by the group.

Well, that's what I hear.

007 Had It Right with the Martinis, from NPR.