Kathy, I've met the editor of Astroms Verlag

Really? Cool! I'm just geeked out about my last name being in a publishing house name, because over here in the States, it's a damn rare name. The more I look at the Google result, the more I realize it's much less so in Sweden. There's a hockey goalie named Hardy Astrom (love that name!), and an engineer with a lot of papers to his credit who has the same first name as my dad, so seeing his name show up a lot is really startling.

Secretly switches everyone's root beer with Moxie and enjoys the ensuing chaos (and spit takes).

Actually, you're making me crave a root beer float made with chocolate ice cream instead of vanilla. If I had my brain today, instead of being Queen of the Insomniacs, I would remember what that's called.

I was thinking that this was a Brown Cow, but googling showed me the error of my ways. A Brown Cow is one of (a) a Coke float (b) a Coke float with chocolate syrup or (c) a root-beer float where the ice cream is melted and muddled up rather than being properly floated as a scoop of ice cream should be, which, really, what's the point, since half the fun is mixing up the ice cream and the root beer as it melts.

Clearly, I need some kind of travel/research grant to verify all three of these and see if there are any other variations I'm not aware of.

Holy moley, my dad used to drink cream soda all the time. As a kid, I could drink maybe half a can. As an adult? Oh god NO!

On a whim last week, I bought a 12-pack of Diet Cream Soda (it was on sale for $1.99!). I am loving it!!

I think that may be a "black cow" Jilli.

Usually DX is right about everything, but I just don't like Barq's. It doesn't have the creamy goodness of an IBC or Abita. Plus, I seem to recall hearing that they're caffeinated, and that's just wrong.

Barq's is caffeinated, though diet Barq's isn't.

I used to love Cream Soda, but I haven't had any lately.

Tomorrow I have to have a meeting with the production manager to discuss "the designer's paranoia and the tech schedule" and, I know from the grapevine, the fact that I am apparantly too easy with my students because I don't give them a hard time about not skipping classes to come in during an emergency. Problem is, I don't really think the designer is paranoid, I think she is right. And she keeps bringing up issues that I, too, have with the director about the lack of respect for costumes/the costume staff. So she is kind of being a bitch and demanding, but I don't know that she is demanding anything that I don't agree with. So this is going to suck.

IBC is quite nice, as root beers go. Although they are the ones who finally convinced me that there is such a thing as too sweet, and its name is cream soda.

I'm a big fan of the IBC root beer, and their's is the only cream soda I actually like. It also makes tremendous ice cream floats.

Usually DX is right about everything, but I just don't like Barq's. It doesn't have the creamy goodness of an IBC or Abita. Plus, I seem to recall hearing that they're caffeinated, and that's just wrong.

I said nothing about Barqs. As noted above, I prefer IBC. I don't drink a lot of Barqs because, as you've heard, it is caffeinated.

I do remember one character in Steinbeck's Cannery Row, or possibly Sweet Thursday, attempting to make a beer milkshake and being appalled with the results, but somehow stout has a whole different vibe.

I've yet to read the books, but the scene appears in the movie version of Cannery Row, one of my all time favorite flicks.