Eat shit

Although somewhat depressing, there is much in this article that pleases me.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/north_east/8278312.stm


Sure, I lament what has become of the stalwart drinkers of the United Kingdom, but it is good to see them stick it to the man in whatever way possible. Particular bonus points for: making a demon-brew, getting pissy with the gummint, mocking said gummint with a pansy beer, and lastly referencing the true definition of a Speedball. Cram it with walnuts, douchebags.

News Flash! College Students Boozing!

Two little articles that should be shared today.

First from across the pond we have this expose or report about a debauched event at Cambridge.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2482111/Cambridge-students-vomit-and-collapse-after-wild-party.html

Read it if you want. Personally, I like The Sun. Of all the UK quasi-tabloids, I read it like a guilty pleasure. The pictures in this particular article are typical of what I saw back at UTK in the early and mid-90s. Nonetheless the tone is most disparaging and alarmist.

Couple that with this recent gem from Forbes:

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/hscout/2009/06/15/hscout628059.html?feed=rss_forbeslife_health

Again, read this propaganda piece if you want. See, most of Christendom has known about this (questionable) phenomena since time immemorial. Young people away from their parents get trashed and engage in outrageous behavior? No foolsies?

A more apt entry could have been found in your most recent copy of "No Fucking Shit Digest" or by word of mouth on any campus not founded by uptight religious folk. Even then, you'll find the little zealots getting tanked from time to time. You know what, those kids usually turn out okay for it as well. After all, JC was known to hang around some rough characters in the beginning.

The second piece in Forbes is quite familiar...because you see every five years or so some uptight "experts" bemoan the completely patriotic collegiate exercise of getting shit-housed and making very bad decisions. Said busybodies will then posit and offer all kinds of odious solutions that don't amount to jack-shit.

Here at DK, we try to keep our politics out of it...in fact, some of our stronger opinion is just that--and, like assholes we all have them(gauche phrase, but I'm rolling here) but this one time let me just say, fuck off nannies. Life is at times full of wonders both subtle and grotesque. It can be hard. It can be confusing. Once a person leaves home to get going on their own life, our recently acquired freedom will test us in many ways. Some will party hard and still manage to get a decent education. Others will make awful, shitty decisions that will forever screw up their life or someone elses. That is part of it, folks. Fate, or God, or Cthulhu, or whomever will cull the wheat from the chaff, and college is a part of that. Moreover, this activity is not restricted to the students...folks that choose another career path after high school are still quite capable of going on an epic bender. Veterans, tradesmen, barber college...you name it.

So drink on college students. Get written on, eat shitty food, pull your pants off, get arrested, nail that beastly troglodyte...whatever twirls your beanie. Just promise me that when you achieve a level of responsibility or position of power, that you won't turn into the hypocrite that dwells in all of us when our values are challenged by age.

/rant fucking over

I've heard of fog-breathers, but this?

Read this absurdity:

http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/cliff-kuang/design-innovation/bar-serving-alcoholic-mist-gets-you-drunk-you-breathe

Apparently for the sum of £5 an hour you can stand around and huff gin fumes while in a Hazmat suit. At least its Hendricks rather than shit gin.

Lunch Drinks

Ahhhh yes, nothing like a satisfying lunch few beers at noon to set you up for the day. One of the (not really) guilty pleasures I enjoy from time to time is having a cold beer or two with my first meal of the day, which is almost always at lunch since I don’t eat breakfast in the morning. It isn’t something I do very often, but I never deny myself the pleasure of enjoying a good brew if the mood strikes me. Frankly I’m surprised I don’t see more people doing the same thing, but more often I realize I’m the only person in the restaurant/pub that dares to have a drink during working hours. Sometimes I’m confused by the other diners’ expressions when they see me sipping a frosty one: Is that person glaring in my direction because I’m a dirty, drunk, loser alcoholic that has to drink to stop the ongoing shakes of delirium tremens, or is he envious because I have the gonads to order a beer with my sandwich while he gulps sweet tea or Dr. Pepper before skulking back to the office? Either way, I don’t care. I’m going to drink my damn beer, stare all you want.

America is a curious society; the South is even more so with all the religious nonsense and neighborly tradition of nosiness that pervades every aspect of our day to day lives (hence the anonymity of the authors). Why is it so damning to have a legal drink or two with lunch, and how did we reach this point? I guess you could cite the Protestant work ethic that shaped Western society, or the failed U.S. experiment that was Prohibition. These days it’s more likely employers’ insurance liability issues for that force an unjust work policy. Choose any theory you want, but these are modern times. Look at the Euros – those bastards out-drink us 2 or 3 to 1 per capita and they seem to be doing just fine. When I temporarily worked in London as a barkeep many years ago it wasn’t uncommon to see patrons have 4-5 beers for lunch before heading back to finish up for the day. The Germans have “biergartens” at the workplace. The Spaniards invented the siesta so they could go home to eat, drink and rest before coming back to work in the evening. The Irish……………. well never mind them. All I’m saying is that we’re too uptight compared to the rest of the Westernized world.

All of that speculative BS aside, there are just too damn many good foods that go with beer:

· Fish and chips
· Pizza
· Hamburger, cheeburger, chip chip chip
· Nachos
· Buffalo wings

Okay, those aren’t exactly the meals I have every day for lunch, but I bet you’re salivating right now wishing for one of them and your favorite beer. Chances are that if you’re reading this, you aren’t one of the snobby prudes sneering over your ice water at me as I quaff my IPA at lunch. But just maybe you’re one of those folks who are afraid to risk a brewski during work hours lest a coworker or friend of the boss rat your ass out and try to get you fired. Two words my friend: Fuck Them. You work hard and deserve your due. It isn’t like a beer or two is going to make you too drunk to function at your job, not after that ¼ lb cheeseburger and ½ lb of french fries sitting in your stomach. Go ahead and order a cold one, you’ll feel better for it. Trust me.

For those of you who wish to learn more about the fine art of drinking on the job I recommend you visit Modern Drunkard Magazine and learn from the masters of boozing.

Olympic Drinking

Fucking China. I was debating on maybe trying to capitalize on the ubiquitous and nauseating amounts of coverage NBC and their whores will hoist upon us beginning...well today actually. To be honest, I am not sure if I should punish my liver for the sins of the orient.

I'm on record as stating this Olympics will have some sort of calamity written all over it.(No I am not referring to the shit paper ripped from a teletubbies episode) Many blogs that I read are of the same opinion, although you wouldn't know much of it from the so-called regular media. These asshats can't grovel fast enough to the Chicoms, while giving lip service to freedom of the press yada yada yada. Being born on the day of the Munich Massacre, I claim clairvoyance on this esoteric and narrow project. There have been the standard reports of pollution, violence at checkpoints, and general commie fuckery. I'm still pulling for some exotic disaster, perhaps a dragon war or the appearance of Zombie Genghis Khan, you know...a real fuckup of Jovian proportion.

Anyhoo. I thought I might try and enlist the group into some of sort of drinking game for the Olympics. Not the faggotry that some locals think of as drinking games, this is strict power boozing and low-key jackassery. Perhaps a beer or shot for every gold medal the USA brings back( I believe that was around 36 or so for the 2004 Summer Games) at the conclusion of ceremonies. Then again, my heart really isn't into it...and to be honest, I'll probably drink that much anyway. So, to close this pointless entry, I've included an image of mostly humorous drunken acts that might be construed as athletic competition. Well, at the Delta Tau Chi house.

Happy Birthday, America.

After a sabbatical resulting from me forgetting my account information, probably due to the brain cells that held said information being killed by the nightly barrage of shots I've been taking, I'm back. Today, we celebrate our forefathers expelling the limey British bastards from the shores of this great land. Also, we should take a moment to give thanks to those who have and are protecting the freedoms the patriots of 1776 fought to establish. If you see a vet today, buy him a beer. That's the very least we can do.

Now, go out and get your party on America.

WTF

Shit. It happened again. In lieu of the usual Monday Hangover I’ve decided to waste your time reporting on what is perhaps the most awful, useless conversation in the history of drinking. Yep, another Battle of the Bands segment – this time with twice the stupidity!
This installment is brought to you courtesy of one of our regular drinking sots: Disco Dan.

As almost any Saturday afternoon goes (when not on the lake) we were drinking at the bar. The usual culprits were on hand: King Randall the Insufferable and his queen, Lord von Lord, myself, Disco Dan and a few others. Things are going well enough until the foreboding words “hey, who sings this song” are uttered and I know what is about to happen. Sure enough we begin discussing music and before you know it we have a “challenge”. This was a new low, even for us:

Bay City Rollers vs. Pet Shop Boys

Seriously? Are you fucking kidding me? The goddamn Bay City Rollers? Never mind the Pet Shop Boys for a minute – The Bay City Rollers??? Who the hell even remembers them, much less any of their songs? Disco Dan does apparently. He is a bit older than most of our group and god knows what other scheisse from the 1970’s he’ll belch forth at a given time, but none of us were prepared to handle this discussion. So automatically we respond by shitting on his chosen band. And don’t even try to figure how we matched them against the Pet Shop Boys. Does it matter? I never thought I’d have to listen to them again, much less be forced to defend them as a superior musical act. God. Anyway:

Bay City Rollers

Pros:
-Only song I recognize is featured in Mike Myers “So I Married an Axe Murderer?” film: S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y Night!

Cons:
-Just look at them!
-No one even knows of them. Fuck them. And fuck you too, Dan. Jesus.

Pet Shop Boys

Pros:
-Only slightly better than the fucking Bay Shitty Rollers
-“I’ve got the brains. You’ve got the looks. Let’s make lots of money.”

Cons:
-Faggy, Euro pop band
-Lots of club/dance music
-Interrupted too many cool radio play lists in the ‘80s

God, isn't that enough to make you want to jam a hammer-drill through your ears. But wait – there’s more!!

We went on to another, almost respectable challenge for our second round:

Asia vs. Steely Dan

This is a lopsided match up. The bands aren’t even in the same genre and I think Asia only had two albums vs. around 30 for Steely Dan. I don’t know how we get so wrapped up in this mess but it does help pass the time while drinking the day away. Fuck, I need some new friends.

Asia

Pros:
-Heat of the Moment
-The video for “Only Time Will Tell” features gymnastics and avant-garde use of TVs

Cons:
-Had only 2 – 3 prominent albums before splitting apart
-Two offspring bands both claim the Asia band title
-Clinging to desperation and performing to this day

Steely Dan

Pros:
-Michael McDonald sang back up on a lot of their songs
-Black Friday
-Babylon Sisters
-Bad Sneakers
-Deacon Blues
-Do It Again
-East St. Louis Toodle-oo
-Hey Nineteen
-Kid Charlemagne
-My Old School

Cons:
-I used to think they were too jazzy and faggy for me to like
-Use of studio musician line up to produce albums gives them an unfair advantage

So there you have it. This is how I wasted part of my drunken weekend. God I hope the rest of you never have it so bad. Geesh, I'm in need of a serious drink. Alone. Without shitty music. Steely Dan is okay. Disco Dan on the other hand...

1984 vs. Synchronicity

For the past several weeks I've been embroiled in a bitter dispute with one King Randall The Insufferable about which 80's rock album is better: 1984 by Van Halen or Synchronicity by those English douche bags The Police. Honestly I don't care about either of these albums anymore which is why it is so amusing that we argue the point at all.


Nevertheless we seem to bring this up a couple times each week and talk a bunch of shit until we become distracted and/or drift to another topic. Let's take a look:

The Police - Synchronicity

1. Synchronicity I
2. Walking in Your Footsteps
3. O My God
4. Mother
5. Miss Gradenko
6. Synchronicity II
7. Every Breath You Take
8. King of Pain
9. Wrapped Around Your Finger
10. Tea in the Sahara

Pros

• I guess I like a couple of those songs
• Escalating band tension and Sting's popularity caused band breakup

Cons

• That damn video for Every Breath You Take with the ashtray and bitchy, whiny song
• That damn video for Wrapped Around Your Finger with all the candles
• Sting's solo career launch pad

Van Halen - 1984

1. 1984
2. Jump
3. Panama
4. Top Jimmy
5. Drop Dead Legs
6. Hot For Teacher
7. I'll Wait
8. Girl Gone Bad
9. House Of Pain

Pros

• Cool album art and kick-ass synthesizer intro
• Video Hot For Teacher features kid-size Van Halen perhaps leading the way for recent social issue of predatory female teacher sex scandals
• 1980's era Rock and Roll summer tour!!

Cons

• Band breakup ultimately leads to Van Halen III with that guy from Extreme
• Paves way for "glam band" era including Poison, Warrant, Jackyl, etc.
• First of several annoying Van Halen albums with numeric titles