Drink Check
 

Me too. When not drinking beer, I'll order any of the following:

Martini (Bombay Sapphire, up, wet, multiple olives)
Sidecar
Bourbon and Coke
Scotch (Black on the rocks -- or Lagavulin if I'm feeling fancy)
Negroni
Mojito


I will also order specialty cocktails that look interesting. The best I've ever had was on a recent vacation, in an Argentine restaurant. I wish I could remember what it was called, but it had a mildly bitter orange flavor and came straight up in a short highball glass.


Sidd(I suppose I've now outed myself to anyone who drinks with me a lot)Finch

Drink Check
 

I will drink any of over 100 single malt scotches, depending on what the establishment has available. I will also drink any of several dozen stouts, but unfortunately must settle for Guinness in most establishments. My tastes in wine are even broader, as I will drink not only Bordeaux but also, occassionally, merlots, cabernets and other reds with good cherry or oak flavors from other countries. On occassion, I will even drink a bit of vintage port, sauternes or even cognac.

These mixed drinks or, as some people call them, "cocktails" generally do not appeal to me.

Drink Check
 

I'm pretty much a creature of habit. Lately it has been cape cods (good for me and tasty at the same time!). Although I get margaritas at mexican joints (I never get them otherwise b/c I have been burned by the random bar margaritas before). I like gin/tonics (Blue Sapphire), but haven't ordered them recently. Sangria is high on my list of tasty drinks (again, location is key). And an occasional bloody mary (preferably spiced by horseradish/hot sauces - dislike pepper floaties in my drink).

Oh and beer of course.

QUESTION
 

What do people know about timeshares? Does anyone own one? Do people have stories of good or bad experiences they or a friend may have had? I'm thinking about it and want some input. Any help would be appreciated.

TM

Drink Check
 

Are you kidding? I've had drinks with you before, but after reading that list, I think I'm remembering the wrong guy.

Drink Check
 

Do you like Young's Double Chocolate? We have that on tap at one of my local beer joints. I can't drink a whole stout (heavy, man), but I like the little sampler cup of that.

Drink Check
 

For a really good chocolate, I recommend heating some good bitter chocolate (2 squares) with a bit of butter and about three or four teaspoons of sugar. Add a shot of espresso and a shot or two of light cream. Heat until it begins to thicken (but doesn't turn to fudge; you may need to add more cream to taste here, too) and then add a shot of a smokey single malt scotch just before serving. Serve in a demitasse. Much better than Young's Double Chocolate, and carries a bit of a punch.


(Editted to add potential need to add more cream, which can be very important!)

Drink Check
 

Partying mood: go to a good Mexican place, margarita on the rocks with salt

Sit around a bar and bs with people for several hours: whiskey, neat

Sit around the deck on a hot day and bs with people for several hours: sangria

Sit around house and bs: wine

Dammit, the dessert list at that restaurant really sucked: Bailey's or White Russian

QUESTION
 

I have a friend who owns one in a foreign place he vacations every year, and he loves it. I have another friend who owns several weeks you can use anywhere in the US or internationally.

They've been extremely happy with them.

QUESTION
 

If you can, try to pick one up on the secondary market, where they usually go for next to nothing. Which tells you all you need to know about how much they hold value. From everything I've read, treat it as advance-pay purchase of x nights in a hotel in whatever locale you choose.

Drink Check
 

Assuming that I'm not drinking Pisco Sours, I generally drink gin martinis, sometimes dirty, sometimes neat. Margaritas and wine will also be consumed, depending on the venue. If I start with beer, I'm ending with beer.

I will, on occasion, go home and sip some scotch, but I consider that to be a separate event from the martini / margarita / wine / beer event.

QUESTION
 

Depends on the number of people involved and where it is. You really have to love the place to go every year. There are some places that I do love enough to go every year, so I could see doing it. I'd want to go in with fewer people and more flexibility. A relative has a beach house that she owns with just one other person, and that works well for her. I think that they split it every other week, and they can easily arrange to swap if they need / want to. The beachhouse isn't that far from where she lives full time, so she takes advantage of it a lot.

QUESTION
 

For the most part it's a complete and utter waste of time. Parents had one and ONLY because they were retired and could go during "Non-blackout" times was it worth it. I tried on several occasions to use it, only to find out that the fuckers are never available when you want them.

That said, a partner at a former law firm let his wife and best friend go to Cabo and when they returned, he found that they were owners of a timeshare in Cabo. However, there were only 8 owners of 1 individual condo so time availability was not an issue (except during the winter holidays). Still he was pissed that she did it without discussing it with him first, but they ended up using it a lot.

So, it depends on the plan, but for the most part - don't waste your time.

Drink Check
 

Maybe if you drank less, you would have more meaningful and substantive conversations with your friends.

Question
 

My Mom bought several RCI timeshare weeks in the 80's (I think for like $3,000-$5,000 per week) and we've kind of taken one over. It is extremely easy to trade them - one note though, these are premium (red weeks) so that they can be traded for anything and you always get the best room in the resort. Different categories go for different prices. Some of the lesser categories require you to use 2 weeks to stay at the same resort and you will not get a room on the water, etc. We've used ours for Vail, Cancun, Germany, Austria, Bahamas, etc., and never had a problem with trading. We did have to book Hawaii two years in advance. Every resort that we've stayed in has been clean, well-kept and in a good location. Our actual time share is in Vermont.

One additional note - your maintenance fees are tied to the resort where your time share is actually located so if you go with an older resort that needs repairs, the fees will be higher.

QUESTION
 

I was thinking more along the lines of a Marriott timeshare. You pick one resort location as home base, but can trade with other participants (for a fee of course). There's a buy-in fee and you own a week at that resort every year.

TM

Drink Check
 

And maybe if you bitched less, you'd have friends.

(Just continuing to take your advice).

Drink Check
 

Actually I'm not a big chocolate fan generally. For some reason I just found it good (in a quirky way) in a beer selection.

QUESTION
 

Hey I went to that meeting too. Did you get your gift certificate?
Here's the rub with the Marriott deal...
1 - there are only a few Marriott's participating in the "Vacation" thing. Those properties are "off-site" away from the hotel - so, slight inconvenience. They offer you "valuable Marriott points" for future stays at a Marriott - which equate to like 1 night in a nice hotel.
2 - they offer that "trade" thing - again, that has never worked for me. I can't/won't book a vacation 2 years in advance.
3 - the places are very clean and very nice - but in order to get your money's worth, you have to split the room - there's some weird false wall/extra door deal where you qualify for extra nights if you only use half the place.
4 - do the math - for what you pay for the place, with the "maintenance" fees, you could stay at any hotel, anywhere for about the same or less, with no black out hassles.
5 - we were pissed anyway because we were told it would be a 45 minute sales pitch, but it turned into a 3 hour hard-close since we kept saying NO.

Drink Check
 

I haven't actually tried it; the purist in me has always questioned the concept of a chocolate taste in beer. Maybe I'll sample the next time I see it. I'm now out of this morning's purist snob mood. Getting to trash PLF always helps my mood.

Drink Check
 

Be nice. Looks like PLF had a tough night.

http://www.nbc4.tv/news/2307056/detail.html

Drink Check
 

That's why we keep him around.

That and his impeccable taste, love of spinning hippie girls, and disgust for people who misuse "irony."

QUESTION
 

My parents have one of the Marriott things. Last year they combined their two weeks so the whole family could go together to Park City. I can't speak to the cost issues, since I wasn't paying, but the accommodations were just okay--hotel-room feel rather than condo feel. However, if we'd just rented a house we wouldn't have had access to the great pool/hot tubs etc., and we wouldn't have had rooms shouting distance from the lift for the alpine slide. There are tradeoffs.

tm

Drink Check
 

True. But can anything make a pleasingly trivial conversation that ambles into a long discussion on foreign policy or the need for health care reform more palatable, spirited, and free than a couple of drinks?

I think not.

QUESTION
 

Meaningless lawyerly intro: you might like it, depending on your needs.

My SO's parents had a Marriott timeshare and last I heard, they were planning to sell it. I think they didn't find it to be worth the cost because they didn't get as much use out of it as they anticipated. That's probably because when they travelled, they had specific places in mind that they wanted to go to, and specific times that they wanted to go.

If you just want to be able to use it once a year and would be happy with any one of a number of different tropical/ski/metropolitan destinations, you might find it to be worthwhile.

We used the timeshare one August for a week in Puerto Vallarta. We were flexible about our destination and the week we traveled, so it worked out nicely. As I recall we had a surprisingly good selection of places from which to choose -- including Maui, Aruba, Paris (suprising for August). Of course all the places were on the Internet, so we weren't flying blind. I picked PV only because I couldn't coordinate affordable airline tix to any of the other places, and we ended up getting there on frequent flyer miles. Call me a prole, but it was the perfect vacation.

The place (a 1 bedroom apartment) was great -- not ultra luxurious and not decorated to my taste, but clean, comfortable, and waterfront (the sunsets were incredible). The resort itself had all we needed, including a concierge who arranged all of our water sports and outings, etc., internet access, pools, bars, restaurant, etc. Having a full outfitted kitchen was enormously convenient, even though we ate most of our meals out. It spoiled us for staying in cramped hotel rooms without even a fridge to keep some fruit or juice in.

If you want more details I can talk to my SO's parents and PM you.

Drink Check
 

Yeesh. Maybe you need fewer drinks and more interesting friends. ;)

Edited to add: last night we discussed the texas law firm scandals, tennis, the nba draft, 4th of july parties, alcohol preferences, and took bets on which women the single guy would be taking home.

Drink Check
 

How many women did he end up taking home? I need more interesting friends, too.

Drink Check
 

Two.

Drink Check
 

How many contenders were there?

I definitely need more interesting friends. Living vicariously through the friends of imaginary internet friends (we are friends, right?) is a just little too attenuated!

Drink Check
 

deleted because the picture won't load, and I have no other point than the picture

QUESTION
 

I haven't been to the meeting. I was looking online. I've heard different things from different people. Some say they love their timeshare, others, like you think it's a waste. The opinions definitely vary widely.

And Marriott was just what I was looking at. I hear RCI is big too.

TM

Drink Check
 

There were two single women in the entire bar.

He made late plans with the one with whom he already had an arrangement, and took the other home while the rest of us split for various dinner obligations. Quick work for happy hour, but he is a professional.

K Day
 

Anyone notice that today should be a K day for both the politics board (where everyone else was left chasing the Trane) and the FB? Has this ever happened before? This is too much excitement for the day before a holiday. No doubt just as exciting a time as was had by that young man at the bar.

QUESTION
 

Well, I'm going to agree with others who have said that it depends on your lifestyle. If you go skiing at the same place every winter then it may be worth it. But really, we did the math and for what they want for "initial fee" "change fee" "maintenance fee" etc., we calculated that we currently spend less than that per year. And we usually stay at Marriotts and Hiltons for the points. We've taken the tours through the condos and they are very nice, we just didn't like the confinement of staying at the same place or hassle of paying a change fee to stay in another place. We're more the Expedia - let's go in 2 weeks kind of people.

QUESTION
 

Have a friend who has parents who have owned them and traded for other time shares, they have loved it.

QUESTION
 

As a lawyer, being anything but guarantees you'll be missing a vacation. I can't imagine the level of frustration at scheduling a time-share two years hence in Maui, and then being told by a partner tht that is the one, and only one, week in which an unimportant third-party witness must be deposed.

Timeshares
 

My first job was telemarketing, trying to get people to come up to Ontario "cottage country" to take a tour of a timeshare property. For this we offered them a free gift, which I recall was a crapola 1986-era portable TV. We got their names and phone numbers from "contest entry forms" people filled out at home shows and boat shows. I was 13 and not quite up to the challenge of having people yell at me for calling during dinner. I didn't last very long.

So my opinion of timeshares is that the people who are trying to get you to go to the meeting are only trying to earn some money to support their X-Factor and Alpha Flight habits, and to make time with the cute blonde 16 year old who works Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.

str(K-free in '03)8

Timeshares
 

I h8 when Ks come up because posting slows so much.

Let's get it over with
 

So let's all just post something inane to get it over with. Where's Fluffy when you need him?

Trane?
 

I'd kind of like to see Trane get it so he could have both.

I'm calling you, Coltrane.