Hell, The Light Is Already On; Let's Do Something With It

How About Haiku?
we waste so much fucking shit!
where do we go next?

?!?

A Finer Single Malt Scotch

Today I hauled my happy ass to north Austin for some yummy Indian vegetarian cuisine and then on to the nearby Crate & Barrel. I'm having a small dinner party on July 4th for four friends plus txrad and myself. Not only will it be my first time to use our new (new to us) dining table, it will be the first time in 12 years of living in Austin that I have planned a dinner get-together with friends in our home!

Needless to say, there are some things I needed to buy to prepare for this. If I'm going to do it, I want it to be nice.

And I scored something for myself as well. This lovely single malt scotch delivery mechanism. What you see pictured here is a Macallan 15. And I'm shocked at what a difference it makes having a quality piece of bar ware from which to consume it.

That glass probably weighs close to half a pound! And it really allows the full scotch bouquet (or whatever they call it) to reach your nose. Quite nice, and well worth $9.00 in my opinion. Not that any of it came out of my pocket; I used a gift card!

I bought some additional glassware which necessitated cleaning out a cabinet to make room. For a few years one of my favorite tequilas was including two shot glasses with each bottle, and they seem to have accumulated.

I now have these in a box, unsure what to do with them. I don't think that type of glass recycles. I guess I can hang on to them, and if I decide to have konafest2012, I can invite 110 of my closest blog buddies and we can all simultaneously do a shot... a toast to the god of kona.

Make your reservations now; space is limited.

During the time it took me to write this post, I have now drained the glass of the Macallan 15. Two big thumbs up.

An Announcement at the Hooch Depot

I was on the west side of the store selecting brews when I heard the announcement:

"We need a wet mop on the tequila aisle."

The thought brought a tear to my eye. Kind of like the old Crown Royal print ads featuring a dropped and broken bottle of Crown Royal with the caption, "ever seen a grown man cry?"

I kicked my cart into high gear and headed east to the tequila aisle where I was prepared to offer my condolences, or possibly help suck it clean it up. Alas, it was only a case of some crappy flavored sweet cocktail things. Oh well, no big loss there.

This is Austin; Let's Have a Drink...or Twelve

Forbes.com has a piece titled America's Hard-Drinking Cities and Austin is on the list. In fact, Austin may be The One.

Austin ranks high for its drinking habits across the board. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC's) 2007 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System Survey, 61.5% of adult residents say they have had at least one drink of alcohol within the past 30 days, and a staggering 20.6% of respondents confess to binge drinking, or having five or more drinks on one occasion.

But if five or more drinks on one occasion constitutes binge drinking, or if that's considered "staggering" then hell, I binge drink every night. Define occasion. Is that like one evening? Or is an occasion a shorter span of time, like when Rachel Maddow makes an appearance on MSNBC, and you do five drinks during the time she's speaking?

When txrad and I open a bottle of wine, that's about 3 glasses each so I'm already 60% staggered. I always have a beer after my wine. It rinses away the sulfites from my mouth. That gets me 80% staggered. So if I top that off with 3 or 4 shots (my shots are probably less than half of an official bar shot) so let's just say two shots, then I'm 120% staggered.

And when Bush is doing an address to the nation, that's when I'm likely to increase my intake. Who wouldn't.

Collegiate excess has repercussions far beyond hangovers and missed classes, and should be of concern to members of the surrounding community.

What a crock of shit. The surrounding community isn't concerned because... THEY'RE ALL DRUNK! Or high. Or both.

"Binge drinking hurts not only the drinker but also others near him," says Henry Wechsler, Ph.D., a lecturer at the Harvard school of Public Health, where he was also the director of the College Alcohol Study, and author of Dying to Drink: Confronting Binge Drinking on College Campuses.

"The binge drinker disturbs the peace, through noise, vandalism and sometimes violence.

I've got one out of three covered. I will be making some noise tonight. But no vandalism or violence. I'll leave that to my neighbor, the meth addict.

A scene from the Wagon Wheel in Austin. Yeeee haawww! Drunk cowboys!

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum Supermarket

txrad went to the store today to buy everything we needed to have veggie burgers tonight except for.... veggie burgers.

I volunteered to run get them around 7:40. I figured since I was out I might as well fetch the smallest possible bottle of tequila. I mean, George Carlin is dead. We must have a wake, right?

So I popped into my neighborhood purveyor of fine beers, wine and booze and the manager said, "You'll never guess who you just missed!"

Tommy Lee Jones had just staggered in, drunk as shit, and trying to find beer. Lucky for him, he had a sober driver. He purchased a 12-pack of Miller Lite. There goes ALL my respect for the guy.

The manager knew it was him but it was confirmed when he attempted to pay with an American Express card with his name on it. They don't take AMEX at that joint so he had to dig around for the cash.

My friend the manager suspected he'd been out at a "titty bar." He stank of "tequila and beer."

Damn. If only txrad had realized he forgot to buy veggie burgers just a few minutes earlier. I could have had a memorable celebrity sighting. But I didn't have my camera anyway.

Austin: 7th Drunkest City in the US

And I've been a major contributor. Via Metroblogging Austin.

And apparently we are also the 3rd fastest growing city, behind Las Vegas and Phoenix, according to Forbes.

A warning to all newcomers: we make damn good margaritas.

I think I'll hold off on entertaining thoughts of selling my house in the near future.

Because Every Sorrow Deserves a Good Drowning

And I aim to take down a few sorrows this evening.

Sweet nectar of the agave. Tis Friday!

Rejoice!