I was pretty disappointed that the Trader Vic's in Chicago closed a couple years back. A friend of mine gave me a copy of a 60s edition of his bar guide, and it is quite a lot of fun. It doesn't only cover the tiki drinks, but they are there. IIRC though, for a few of them, they just say to use his bottled mixer rather than giving actual ingredients.

Also, in Minneapolis, there is Psycho Suzy's Motor lounge, which has a pretty good selection of Tiki drinks, most of which will knock you on your butt.

To DrKen,

I'm really glad your story turned out well! That is what these shelters are there for.

I think one point that is lost in this is that there are probably more good experiences than bad. It is that there some bad apples out there. Not even bad apples, but just people who's good intentions go awry and ultimately end up as negatives for the animals.

The story I posted earlier was atypical of our shelter (though the attitude about humane society's wasn't). IIRC, they ended up switching adoption directors, because the one was so strict that it was virtually impossible for cats to get adopted out.

My wife and I used to volunteer for a no kill cat shelter and saw something like this first hand as well. We had a friend who worked as a Vet nurse who was denied a cat because she answered the question "is it ever OK to declaw a cat" wrong. Not "are you ever going to declaw this cat." we generally oppose declawing ourselves, but there are instances where perhaps it is best for the cat. To say never, well that is a little much.

The other thing that was perpetually irritating about the no kill shelter was their contempt for other organizations who do euthanasias. Again, we certainly don't support the destruction of animals, but the shelter's approach was to close to new intakes when it was full, which the Humane society can't do. What they failed to recognize was that their own policies ultimately were dooming cats to be euthanized, albeit indirectly. The moral smugness about it, and the air of superiority, was just unreal though.

By and large, shelters do important work, and are staffed by competent, decent people. I do think, however that HH is right on the money about at least some of them. I've seen it first hand.

I'm not at all a metal fan, but it would seem that the whole genre is missing from the intial list. At least one Van Halen track should be on there (as EVH was a massive influence over later guitarists), probably an early Metallica track of sorts, and maybe Motorhead's Ace of Spades as a Metal/Punk fusion. I'm not sure there is much on the original list I'd kick off, but at least the EVH omission is pretty glaring.