Earthquake in the front lawn.
Today as part of my ongoing quest to find the perfect high alcohol malt beverage (a big plus if it happens to have some energy drink properties too- I’m dreaming of you Four Loko…) I decided to go for the 99 cent deal at the Mighty Mart and take a big gulp of “Earthquake”. 
It being such a lovely day (yes, they do exist here in lovely (and okay fine, fabulous) Las Vegas) I walked to the market. It just seems like the whole town comes alive on days like this - the tire shop broadcasted a “have a nice weekend Tom!” message over their loudspeaker to Tom as he was leaving work, the drunk guy crossing LVB complimented me on my shirt, (so I must be doing something right), even the drug runner on his bike gave me a smile as I passed and, as I walked into the Mighty Mart, I heard some guy offer to buy his friend Luv-it across the parking lot “Come on dude, such a nice day- my treat.” (I was tempted to ask for some Luv-it myself, but in that parking lot, I was afraid he might misunderstand me.)
In keeping with the spirit of this glorious day, I decided to go total WT on the neighborhood and eat grilled hot dogs and guzzle my Earthquake in the front yard. But, just to keep my father from spinning all the way to China in his early grave, I did pour the beverage into a more suitable jam jar glass.
Why don’t more of us “stoop” these days? When I lived in DC people used to do it all the time, and when I lived in Kentucky, people had full on Laz-y boys on their front porches, but I don’t really see it at all here and that’s a pity, cause the mailman sure was nice, assuring me that he loves the desert and can’t wait to walk around all day in the three digit summer swelter, I saw a cool old orange carmengia, and an exceptionally large woman piloting an oversized red pickup blasting light country (God I love it when stereotypes are true!). They say that a good stoop culture can help prevent crime and clean up neighborhoods. I remember reading somewhere that the murder scatter plot in Vegas is fairly consistent, that is to say that you have just as good a chance being killed in this town downtown as you do in Summerlin or Green Valley, so may I recommend more people head out to the front lawn, or gravel pit as the case may be, and, after carefully chaining your bench to a conveniently placed tree (that is location dependent) sit down, open a cold one and enjoy the all the free charms your neighborhood probably has that you never knew.
And yes, for anyone still wondering, though from the over comma-ed and parenthesis laden treatise above you could probably deduce that yes, indeed, the Earthquake was at least a 7.0.
