#463 The sound of a cork popping

Neil Pasricha

Last year my friend Baxter popped a champagne cork off his head.

Yes, he bent over the bottle, gritted his teeth and twisted, and managed to shoot that cork like a speeding bullet right smack off his forehead. He stared up with his mouth forming a giant O of shock as bubbles foamed up and dripped on the carpet and a painful dark red bruise slowly formed right between his eyebrows.

Still sounded cool, though.

AWESOME!

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— Email message —

“Hi Neil, here’s another thing I find awesome: Finding pistachios that have fallen out of their shell in the bag. When I have the munchies, not much beats a salty handful of pistachios. But when I’m rooting through the bag, I find that not all of them are created equal. In fact, there are four kinds of pistachios offering varying degrees of difficulty:
1) Shell completely closed: These ones are a lost cause, so I always toss them right back onto the bag. Maybe some other ambitious sole will try to crack them open, but more likely, they’re gonna find a home in the trash bin.
2) Shell just a tiny sliver open: These ones are tricky, but stand a chance of being eaten. Whether I throw these ones back in the bag or not will depend on two factors: a) How long my thumbnails are, and b) How hungry I am.
3) Shell open wide: These are great. When I’m peckish, I can open these ones in rapidfire succession without a hitch. Before I’ve even realized (because I’m distracted by Discovery Channel), I’ve ripped through like three handfuls.
4) The ones that have fallen out of their shells: These are the crown jewels of pistachios. No fuss. No work. Just
AWESOME!!!”

– Adrian

Photo from: here

32 thoughts to “#463 The sound of a cork popping”

  1. Oh my goodness! I’m glad Baxter still has both eyeballs.

    I looooove the sound of a cork popping! It means party time! :)

    Although one time, we were trying to use THE worst corkscrew ever. The cork was stubborn, we were getting impatient, and … well, we broke off the top chunk of the cork. It was decided that the only solution at that point would be forcing the cork into the bottle. Long story short: cork sound + red wine explosion. Oops :(

    I COMPLETELY agree with Adrian’s pistachio analysis. Perfect! Screw those crappy completely-closed ones. Worthless.

  3. i just have to say that i only discovered pistachios in the past few months, but i’ve become what can only be described as hopelessly obsessed. as someone who doesn’t snack, finding something that so fully satisfies me as a snack has been a real eye-opener.

    so adrian, not only do i seriously admire your analysis of pistachio shells, but i COMPLETELY agree! i had a small cup-full today before a nice 4-mile run and experienced a few of each category: in all of their glory (and sometimes difficulty), pistachios are my #1 go-to snack that have helped me to make those small moments of my life unbelievably AWESOME!

  6. No sense worrying about a little welt on the forehead…as long as it sounds cool during the process, right?

  8. I just learned this year that the french verb for uncorking a bottle of champagne is “sabrer,” which literally translates to “slash with a sword.” Awesome.

      1. Agreed. When the zombie apocolypse arrives, we don’t want to give them any easier access to our brains than they’ve already got.

        Let’s not help them out but waving around swords near our foreheads.

        As we like to remind people around here at 1000awesomethings.com: Do your part to help prevent the zombie apocolypse! Safety First!

    2. Last Halloween my friend dressed as wolverine and literally slashed a cork from a bottle of champagne. It was truly awesome

  9. My boss has a permanent cork-sized hole in his ceiling from when my coworker got her PhD last semester.

  10. Ironically enough, today is my 21st birthday… I just popped my first cork last night =)

  11. Whenever I find a completely closed off shell, I try to crack it open with my teeth. 60% of the time it works every time.

    1. Yeah – but the pistachios inside aren’t salty and delicious like the ones that are already cracked open. Totally not worth it!

    2. Ha ha! Or one can take a good ol’ fashioned nutcracker, place the pistachio inside lengthwise and split it open that way. But that creates a problem because the expectation changes when you’re eating pistachios. You don’t wanna use a nutcracker. It’s not like a walnut, where use of a nutcracker is expected. I still say dish the closed ones :)

  12. i did that once too!

    I was popping the champagne and I turned away from my friends, but directly facing a wall. It hit the wall and hit me in the forehead. I then wrote on it “HIT SELF IN HEAD – January 2001”

    I guess I was proud.

  13. Hi Adrian
    Discovered your blog through The Times.
    What do you know? It really made me smile
    Awsome!

  16. Me and my dad use the cracked shells to open up barely-open-pistachio-nuts.

    Simply:

    1. Put shell inside the space of the crack.
    2. Turn shell (like opening a can of shoeshine)
    3. Voila. :D

  17. This has, for a long time, been my favorite sound in the whole world. It’s sooo happy!

    See this video from the film Gigi, “The Night They Invented Champagne,” and you’ll see that we are not the only people who feel this way! Leslie Caron did too – Yay!

  19. Last week my friends and I went on a grad trip. We were at the hotel’s pool and after toasting with champagne and drinking the whole bottle, I got us each a beer (in bottles) and I got the crazy idea to stick the cork in the beer bottle, shook it and it popped! Again! It was awesome and i felt like a genius :D

  22. Looking for a pop or rock song that has sound of a cork being popped!Any guesses?For a radio contest.Thanks!

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