This week’s installment of the Digital Viking: The EDSBS Guide to Spicy Living salutes a real American hero, Edwin Eugene “Buzz” Aldrin. Aldrin’s badass resume needs no full recap, as he was the second man to walk on the moon, which is clearly the best position ever since you’re not stupid enough to take the first step and therefore tramp right into the mouth of a waiting lunar sandworm. No, heroes go second, and suckers go first.

Aldrin also flew 66 missions over Korea, got a Ph.D. in Astronautics from MIT, took communion on the moon, appeared both and the Simpsons and on Punky Brewster, and has sick, sick flow on the mike. He also knows how to punch a bitch if he has to:

As the Prince of Astronauts, we salute you, Buzz Aldrin, and gulp floating orbs of martini in your honor. Cheers.

Our guest this week: Matt “Ufflepuff” Ufford of Warming Glow. Bon appetit.

Drink.

Holly: As previously honored on other, lesser websites, a nod to being on vacation for the next two weeks in 95 degree heat and 99% humidity — The Bull Gator:

Fill a pint glass with ice. Add vodka, and just enough Hypnotiq to turn the drink blue. Wedge a full can of Red Bull upside down in the ice, and serve with a straw and copious admonitions not to dislodge the can. As you grip & sip, the Red Bull will flow down, turning your drink a pleasant swampy green. The effects of consuming a full glass of vodka chased with a full can of Red Bull are most readily compared to Super Mario in the throes of an invincibility star. Those sparkles on your skin? Totally real. Go right ahead and run through that door, gentle reader, whether it’s open or not. Trust me, you won’t feel a thing.

Matt: The Transcontinental. Never heard of a Transcontinental, eh? Probably because it didn’t exist until I requested it from the unrivaled J.R. at Sidecar. And I’m going to share it with you, and you will make it for people, and they will be impressed, and you won’t give me credit, because who gets drink recipes off the Internet?

  • 1.5 oz rye (or bourbon – something with more of an edge like Knob Creek works well)
  • 1 oz grapefruit juice (NOTE: REAL grapefruit juice. Pink grapefruit juice is too sweet, unless you’re making it for a girl or a Tennessee fan)
  • ½ oz St. Germaine elderflower liqueur
  • 2 dashes bitters
  • Fresh sage

Muddle three sprigs of sage in a shaker, add ice and ingredients, shake, serve neat. HOLY LIVING FUCK this drink is good. It’s a bunch of aggressive, powerful flavors residing together warily in a delicious détente. It’s like drinking a meadow made of whiskey.

Comestibles.

Holly:

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The Nickel Diner’s Maple Bacon Donut, which is exactly what you think it is.

Matt: Bananas. Wanna make your co-workers uncomfortable? Unpeel a banana, and jam as much of it as possible into your mouth. I mean really just take it. Channel Jenna Haze. (This works whether you are a man or a woman, although in different ways.)

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Also: high in potassium. Helps prevent muscle cramping. That’s nice.

Combustibles.

Holly: Video tagline for this reads, “In case you have always wanted to see a massive underwater explosion.” You’re too kind:

Matt: 120mm sabot round meeting a T-72 combat load.

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The T-72 main battle tank was developed by the Soviets in the 1970s and subsequently sold to all the countries who aren’t friends with NATO. Its combat load consists of 39 125-millimeter cannon rounds (weighing about 50 pounds apiece), 2000 7.62mm rounds, and 300 12.7mm rounds, and it has a fuel capacity of 1200 liters (about 320 gallons). That’s what we in the business call “a lot of shit that can blow up.”

Enter an M1A1 tank opposed to said T-72. Being in the first tank to cross a partially blown-up bridge over the Diyala River into Baghdad under fire can be stressing even on the best of days, and seeing a T-72 in a dug-in defensive position as you hit the far shore immediately ratchets up that stress a couple thousand percent. So yeah, the fire command to your gunner is maybe a little rushed, but when he fires off that round and you see see the orange spark of depleted uranium-on-steel, that feels pretty fucking sweet.

And then the secondary explosions. A geyser of flame from the turret. Muffler-sized chunks of hot steel landing hundreds of yards away as fuel and propellant and gunpowder cook off like roman candles tossed into a bonfire. A half hour later, fire and smoke the color of night still spew readily from the remains, and the heat singes eyebrows from a football field away. And you think: that was my JOB today. I fucking destroyed shit.

Transit.

Holly: The Sukhoi Su-34. It’s a fighter/attack aircraft that can carry nearly nine tons of missiles and ammo (in addition to its cannon and wingtip missile mounts), but the really interesting thing is it has a large, fully equipped flight deck with both a restroom and a small galley. So after you’ve flown in and blown The Bad Guys to hell and back, you can be all, “Hey, who wants pancakes?”

As a variant of the Su-27 family, it is presumably capable of pulling the “Pugachev’s Cobra” maneuver, in which the pilot yanks back on the stick and more or less stalls the airplane, which still remains in straight forward-moving flight even though its angle of attack is between 90 and 120 degrees. Plus its NATO code name is “Fullback,” which somehow seems appropriate.

Matt: The M1A1 Main Battle Tank.

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Seventy tons of turbine engine-powered hate and discontent, designed for and excellent at the following: blowing up other tanks (see above); gunning down people with a 7.62mm coaxial machine gun that for all intents and purposes is an automatic sniper rifle; delivering .50 caliber machine gun rounds to the gas tank of Republican Guard trucks, engulfing them in the billowing black smoke of a diesel fire; flattening cars that stand in your way on a narrow canal road; and generally feeling like a badass. Downside: poor gas mileage.

Canon.

Matt: Y: The Last Man. Yes, a comic book. But listen: every male mammal on the planet dies except for one man (Yorick) and his pet monkey. Sweet! Non-stop poon party, right? Well, not quite: with all the men go most of the world’s commercial airline pilots, the international shipping industry, and all the good stand-up comics. It’s the apocalypse. Yorick’s global quest to find his girlfriend and save humanity is beautifully drawn and expertly told – the best use of the genre since Watchmen.

Holly: Captain fucking EO. Don’t argue, assholes; IT’S IN SPACE.

(Part 2 hyah.)