This can't possibly go wrong

Courtesy of those wacky Germans that now own PlayMobil, I give you this:

Gotta love the Periodic Table of wine.

Behold the Wine-Tasting Party Playset. This gem of toy goodness is currently stirring up controversy with the uptight brigade, feeling that this particular series will glamorize drinking to children. While I have mixed feelings on kids being around booze( oh yes, we all know that) I'm not sure this is something for society to get worked up over.

You see, these PlayMobil things have been around in some form or fashion since I was a kid. It's a bastard amalgam of Fisher Price and the Lego figurines in obscure settings. There was even a McDonald's playset many years ago that presumably demonstrated the joy of food service to an entire cadre of sullen Gen X'ers like yours truly. Using such ahem, logic, I can only auger that the wine playset won't make kids want to booze it up more than they might already. After all, most parents that knee-jerk against this kind of harmless item are the ones whose drunken barbarism is evident for little Dakota, Montana, and Chas to see every weekend. Hypocrisy is a bitch.

In a practical vein, this specific toy doesn't seem like it would hold a child's attention very well. What rugrat can pull his or her fat ass away from GTA 4 long enough to note the carafe, wine rack, and awful brown shoes...deciding right then and there for a life of unrepentant boozing and shitty behavior? *That usually comes later...with a delicious can of Coors Original but I digress*

Anyhoo...this little item might be better off for adults. The possibilities are endless. You can rehearse your pick-up lines, or wargame social scenarios without an actual bar tab. Lonely? Not anymore with these guys on your kitchen table. Give them weird names, if that twirls your beanie. They even bend at the waist so you can even simulate a horrific puking episode at the frat house.

Fuck it. I'm getting one so the authors can re-enact the weekend for your viewing pleasure.

Move the Hell away from the damn bar, shitheads

Christ, was I pissed off last Friday. I've struggled back and forth with the decision to call out the bar where this disgrace occurred. For now, I've opted against it since to smear the business would be somewhat unfair based upon the utter douchebaggery of their patrons...even if the establishment could do more to discourage the bastard practice of standing around a crowded bar after you've received your beverages.

Most decent people know that once you've gotten your drink, you need to allow the patron behind you to belly up to the bar. Unfortunately, with the utter pussification of this nation in the last two decades, someone hasn't been getting the memo...and worse, sentinels of good drinking habits haven't been taking the offenders to the side for a quick word or asswhipping.

No longer.

So I say to you, dipshit college aged turd that wouldn't move after ordering complicated drinks: Fuck you. This little spike-haired bastard further broke good conduct by sticking his arm through my group to fist bump another of his shitface friends. Poor fucking form. I pray to a just deity that your car was keyed and filled with the stench of catpiss and vomit.

I say to you, blondish whore with her whore friends that ordered mind erasers. First, bitch, when the bar is packed you either buy beer or two-part cocktails. Mind erasers? Are you fucking high? Then you and your little collection of STDs had the hard tits to slurp them through the goddamn straw right there. In a circle. In a crowd of thirsty people. You apparently didn't see baleful stares of the staff boring holes in the back of your peroxide hair.(your roots were black as night, harridan)...at least the one poor guy tagging along with your hellish drop had the decency to look around as if expecting to get smashed with a pint glass.

Awful, goddamn awful. I blame your upbringing. You all should take poison and get fucked.

Some things that suck

Damn you Knoxville. Splash pads and fountains may play well with the average dolt of a citizen that blindly looks at parks and greenways on face value as signs of culture. Meanwhile, those of us with a basic understanding of filth and disease shake our heads in disgust. Since this sign was clearly a post-poop afterthought, no one in a position of authority dared think that degenerate parents would allow their Hellish drop to prance about non-treated water in diapers. Just fucking awful.



Damn you Fulmer. A common refrain these days in Big Orange Country, made all the more relevant given the lackluster victory over a lackluster opponent. The collapse of the college football season means ill tempers and a social epidemic of drinking away one's sorrows. Though we here believe in 'drinking our way through it' as described last week, it would be pleasant to have a reason to celebrate. Instead, the evenings following a UT game are not the festive events like they were during my college days. Saturday night was like a leper colony sans the hope.



Damn you wine hangover. Look, since the dawn of civilization and grape-stomping, people have grappled with the dehydrated headaches of drinking too much vino. Following last week's WOTW festival on the river, my head was pounding like a full-on artillery barrage. I've been to three of these things and nothing goes totally right for me. As an event, it's a great deal of fun. A varied selection of wine and food from local and regional vendors, plus its for charity so you can fool yourself that you are part of something better than swilling wine on Friday(which you would be doing anyway, drunkie).



Damn you Cleveland Browns fans.

Mother of God, look at this asshole. While I endorse pelting non-performers with rotten vegetables and C-cell batteries(similar damage to D batteries, but lighter) I cannot help wanting to become the biggest shill and program homer when faced with the likes of this 'fan'

Damn you local schmucks. While walking through the World's Fair Park Saturday I once again lamented the lack of a rocking bar in the former L&N. When I was a boy, it was the first place I really can remember people getting plastered. I wanted to be one of those patrons and eagerly looked forward to drinking there on my eighteenth birthday. Two things prevented me from doing so: The utterly capricious decision to bump the drinking age to twenty-one, and the asshole jerks that seem to have their fingers in everything. Sure, nothing escaped the financial turmoil after 82 down there, but gradually business and life has returned to the Park, be it in the Sunsphere or Convention Center. The meddling historic assholes and nebulous power players in this town can't agree on what to do with the place. It's a shame. Sitting on that enclosed patio looking over the Park would be a capital locale for casual boozing.

Come down to the Brewer's Jam this weekend and see if you agree about the L&N. Failing that, you can at least get some sweet beer action. That, at least, will not suck.

Sundown 2.0- The Contrarian View

On the heels of Mackey's post regarding Sundown minutia, I feel compelled to add some thoughts on this once-relevant activity.

Sundown in the City has been hashed out on many local blogs and message boards, and a variety of viewpoints and opinions have surfaced. Too many kids, we should welcome the kids, not enough places to get a drink, too much drinking, etc. and so forth throughout perpetuity.

Allow me to give the more or less official view of Sundown from the bloggers here:

It now sucks.

A little background is necessary. The authors here break the year down into boozing seasons and Sundown was the proverbial spring of drinking, just as it coincides with the onset of the common Springtime. It's a time to shake off the doldrums of winter, see old friends that come out of hibernation, watch some cool regional and nationally renown bands, end up at the patio of the Downtown Grill and Brewery. Rinse and repeat. Up until a few years ago, the crowd seemed a friendly mixture of powerdrinkers and sophisticated music fans co-existing in a fun atmosphere. Now, it's a draconian exercise in KPD and the city's desire to regulate their responsibility and fun. Also you can't swing a cat without hitting drunkass teenagers and students. (hypocrisy disclaimer-while the authors were once punkass underage drinkers ourselves, we were much much cooler than the chumps and chumpettes that do so now, so suck it!)

Mackey has alluded to the rules regarding bottled water and paying for the 'privilege' to drink in addition to the product itself. Absurd. I can understand the mentality of these events even if I don't agree with them. Just like Rossini, the powers that be want you to have to complete Heraklean labors to just get a fucking beer. Stand in line for a wristband, stand in line for a ticket, stand in line for a beer. It all takes precious time that frankly we don't have in a mass of peeps.

While the lineups in years past have been great(Drive-By Truckers, Gin Blossoms to name a couple) and this year is no exception, the crowd has simply outgrown the venue. It's a hot sticky concrete canyon and is hotter than balls. It makes my friends that live downtown miserable simply by virtue of having thousands of folks in their grill.

I can understand the great passion that many people have for Sundown, even now...and respect that viewpoint. But for the professional drunkard, eschew the show, find a barstool and hunker the fuck down.

Bar Peeve 1.0

Kids in the damn bar.

Okay, first let me say that I have never had a saintly tongue. Nor does anyone associated with this online tub of shiesse (just to be clear though Mackey and King Randal are far worse with their profanity) for that matter. It is said that profanity is the inevitable linguistic crutch of the inarticulate motherfucker. Then again, PJ O'Rourke counters with the assertion that profanity enlivens otherwise bland opinions.

We tend to congregate with the latter school of thought.

Having said all this, allow his Lordship the time to rail on his number one bar pisser-offer: Children in the damn bar. Look, we all know that responsible parents can toss back a few(many) and that they still can be good parents. For what it is worth, procreation is recognized as essential by the collective authors here. However, those of us lucky enough or unlucky enough not to have kids(depending on what fucking school you come from) will tell you that the barfly lifestyle is conducive and compatible most with not having the little shits around.

When I am knee deep in blood and whiskey, the last thing I am thinking about when I rant on for hours is the little bastard running around the foosball table after nine bells. Get his or her ass out of there if you don't want him or her hearing about: pussy, cock, bitch, whore, bastard, fuckface, fucker, fucking fucker, whore/prick of doom, asshole, prick of the year, and countless references to what is known to the hip kids on Al Gores internet as "butt secks"

Seriously, do you expect me to tone down my hatred/rage/joy/mirth by keeping a firing solution on your hellish drop all night? Get fucking real. Take them home before DCS gets a slurred phone call from the bar. One more thing, the little rat bastard needs some exercise.