I’m guessing its NOT just water and you’ve written that to deceive some security guards at a sporting venue you intend to visit that it isn’t vodka (or gin or other clear spirit) and tonic… 
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Around here, that would attract attention from the security guard, while an unlabled bottle would probably not get a second look. The people at Sox park sometimes check that the bottle isn’t opened (or doesn’t look opened…), but mostly I don’t think they get paid enough to care too much.
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No I was being slightly sarcastic - you’d have to be pretty stupid to label your ‘water’ as ‘Just Water, honest guv!’ if you were trying to sneak it in.
I took G&T in an Evian bottle (or similar water bottle!) into a cricket game in Adeleide and just as they were examining my bag, I saw a lemon pip (I had squeezed the juice in earlier) slowly descend the liquid… Luckily, they didn’t notice and I was waved in! Mmmmmmm, warm G&T…
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At the festivals I went to when I was younger they were particularly strict on beverages being taken in.
We discovered however that if you did get patted down on entry, it was never “thorough”.
That led to us decanting spirits into mini water bottles, tying them together and suspending them from our belts.
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I ran into a group of medical students at a fest, who had smuggled in immense quantities of booze by putting it in IV bags and taping them to the stomach of one of them so it looked like she was pregnant.
A fest we went to last year, we had VIP tickets, one of the perks of which was special entry lines. the gate we went in, the regular line was walk through the metal detector, quick bag look, but they were being super through checking VIPs, probably because they were bored.
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It would have been hilarious if one of the IV bags had sprung a leak. “Oh God, her water broke!”
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Do not forget that there is now US precedent for presuming that a bag labelled “bag full of drugs” may in fact be full of drugs.
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I am reminded of the time I shipped a land-rover propshaft via UPS. I happened to have a piece of PVC pipe the right size, so I put the drive shaft in, and glued caps on it. It arrived at the destination with a “Not a pipe bomb” written on it in magic marker.
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Congratulations, it’s a tequila!
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Drat! We wanted a rum!
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Okay, I have secured a cover artist (woo!). I have purchased a table to do stop motion on (woo!). I have organized my space… I am ready to get this show on the road.
… almost.
The next few weeks are going to be a lot of trial-and-error on how to make good content for Youtube, including things like “how to make damage grids for a mech show up on the screen and how to fill them out in such a way that doesn’t take too long, looks good, and conveys the right information both diagetically and to the viewers,” and “how to record a battle report in such a way that I can then recreate in the studio without it taking forever to record and forever to recreate.”
Lots and lots of tutorials, I suspect. Lots of playing around with Stopmotion Studio and Davinci Resolve, which I think is overkill for my current needs but I might as well start with the tools I’m going to need eventually. At least I still know Audacity for the audio end of things.
Once I have the first two episodes roughed out, then I get to ask a musician friend for soundtracks for the episode ($$), and an artist for a logo and splash screens ($$) and then find out what else I need to make the whole thing look… not “professional,” because I’m not, but entertaining. I have a vision in my head, but this has to be something I can do enjoyably because my budget is, as always, limited.
As an aside, for decades I thought my gravestone would read “Here lies Marc. He accomplished nothing and then he died.” Now I think it will probably read “Here lies Marc. He wanted to accomplish so much, but couldn’t afford any of it and then he died.”
There is so much I want to do. So much to write, so much to film, so much to record and animate. But gods everything costs so much. It’s exhausting.
Ah well. In brighter news, I passed my 3-month “We Can Fire You For No Reason” period at my part-time office job, and the boss (who has been on vacation for more than 10 of the last 12 weeks) seems to be content with my work so far. Small raise (which means I am now being paid $3/hr more than at my last job, where I was for 8 years, and over double per hour what I was paid per hour as a vice-president at the small R&D company I worked for 12 years). And benefits! First time I have ever received benefits for any reason other than being a university student! I’m gonna to the dentist. And I might not even cry in the car afterwards!
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That’s fantastic news! Look forward to watching them! 
Nice your wages have gone up too!
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Heyyy, that’s all so positive! Very pleased for you, and best of luck with the animation!
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Contributing to free/libre and open-source software can be a very satisfying thing, but is sometimes exasperating/exhausting. Currently wishing that I’d put vastly less time and effort into something.
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Beggars will be choosers, eh? I’ve noticed a lot of open source communities have a degree of toxicity.
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A wonderful moment last Wednesday night, on the way back from holiday in Finland. We’d stopped for the night at a hotel in a village near Bremen, and the thunderstorm was rolling in. I think the staff were very surprised at how many people wanted to eat outdoors (under cover), but after a hot sticky day it was glorious.
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Our friend gets festival pouches and puts them in her bra
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Aint warm alcohol great… 
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Okay, I have a question for the collective intelligence of y’all.
I’m toying around with starting a weekly-ish Battletech batrep channel on Youtube, heavily influenced by 3D Botmaker’s diecast racing leagues. Basically mech combat with colour commentary (mine will be stop motion instead of his live-action filming), gladiatorial combat style.
I want to know what to call the channel. My current ideas are:
Mech Arena Rumble eXtreme (the lead commentator is named “Marx,” so I figured it would tie in nicely, but it might be a bit too on the nose?)
Solaris VII Mech Combat Arena (S7 MCA has a nice ring to it, and Solaris VII is the gaming world in the Battletech universe, and the setting for the diagetic gladiatorial channel you are watching)
Solaris VII League of Independent Stables Tournament (S7 LIST… the LIST is the name of the fictional tournament the show is based around, or more accurately the tournaments… I plan for 3 or 4 “styles” of batrep, 2v2, 4v4, and mixed with scenarios occasionally tossed in to mix things up. The default style I’m going for right now is 2v2 ‘Wing Commander’… ramble-ramble-ramble)
The Way of the Mechwarrior (TWotMW doesn’t roll off the tongue, but it will be easier for people to randomly find, theoretically)
I’m also open to other suggestions, of course.
I’ve finished shooting about 75% of the footage I need and I just finished writing the first draft of the script, and I’ve spent about 9 hours watching Davinci Resolve tutorials to figure out how to edit lasers and explosions into the stop motion movies I’ve shot.
This might still end up being nothing, especially because I’m doing this by hand in my “spare time.” But I think I want to give it a whack, see how it goes…
So! Does one name “work” better?
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First thought: Is “Solaris VII” a trademarked name that you could get legal trouble for using?
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