TMI Thursday: Me and Mr. Wodka Don't Hang around Where We're Not Wanted

Let's head back in time to that magical era I called my sophomore year of college. It was early spring of 1996, and for some reason, I had not been involved in the theatre production that had just wrapped up. I think it had something to do with my work schedule.

Despite having missed the show, I was invited to one of the cast parties because I was a regular. Being that I felt like throwing caution to the wind and actually having a little fun, I decided to head on down to the party. Accompanying me was the other two legs of my Unholy Triangle, Scooter and Young Bob. You might remember them from the infamous "White Chair Incident". And Young Bob was the camera operator for Sparkle Belly. Rub my nipples.

We finally roll into the shindig there on second Justin West, and immediately I grab a beer and start drinking. What fun is college with alcohol-fueled shenanigans? Alright, alright, it can be fun without the booze, I know. But, seriously, I'm not one to pass up free booze. This could be downfall, as we'll soon see.

Foreshadowing aside, I down the first beer rather quickly. Not feeling anything, I get a second. Again, it's gone painfully fast. Time for a third. What the hell is this I'm drinking? Water? Oh, Miller Lite. Same fucking thing. But, it's college. I give myself a pass. Plus, hello, free beer = good beer. Not always true, but in college, it's a 90% win rate.

When it comes time for my kids to go to college, I'm going to teach them a few rules. The first one will be "Liquor before beer, in the clear; beer before liquor, sicker quicker." This is a talk I wish my father had had with me, but since my mother threatened me with bodily harm if I even so much as touched alcohol in college, I left for Rensselaer, IN with a wide, innocent-eyed view of my future. You have to remember that in high school, I was a much different person than I am now. Alcohol? Me? Never!

Back to the party. Not only did I head off to this party with my good friends Scooter and Young Bob, I also arrived with a healthy lust for a Croatian honey that we'll call Amy. We'll call her Amy because she's in the army now and I'm pretty sure she could kill me with a look if I used her real name. So, Amy it is!

Anyway, Amy was this beautiful first-generation Croatian girl that I had been sprouting wood for since we both arrived at St. Joe in fall of 1994. As I was in one of the "off again" periods with the Ex-, I felt that anything and everything was fair game. Did I ever mention that I have a thing for Slavic people? They are a beautiful race of individuals, in my opinion. Amy had dark hair, gorgeous, big, round brown eyes, and a singing voice that would make the gods themselves weep. Plus, she had big tits.

Amy showed up at the party, but didn't stay long. She came in, got a drink, and mingled for a moment or two and then left. I had waded about four or five beers deep into the Sea of Debauchery when I saw Amy show up. I sauntered over to the bar, struck up a feeble attempt at conversation, and then asked what she was drinking. It was a college party, so it wasn't like I was going to go all captain smooth here and try to buy her a drink. She was having a screwdriver, medium vodka.

'Fuck,' I thought--though hazy my mind may have been--'if she can handle a medium vodka screwdriver, I can handle a heavy vodka screwdriver.'

"Can I get one, too?" I asked the lovely Mandy, who was manning the bar and hosting the party. "Heavy on the vodka."

I'm pretty sure that the lovely Mandy upended the bottle of vodka into my cup and whispered the words "orange juice" over the top of it. When this young woman made a drink heavy on the vodka, the stock price of Smirnoff shot through the roof. Like an idiot, I drank it.

Up to this point, I was largely a vodka virgin. I knew what it was, that it made an excellent drink, and that it largely had no flavor. I also knew that it was a bit tricksy when it came to you feeling drunk. You drink it, and then you don't feel all that drunk. However, suddenly--WHAM-O!--you're fucking blotto and quoting lines from Crime and Punishment. What? I love me some Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov.

So, here I am, stumbling mingling about the party with my half-consumed bucket of vodka and I'm not feeling drunk. In hindsight, I'm acting drunk, but not feeling it. Case in point. Remember, I came to the party with Scooter and Young Bob. Now, Young Bob was not one to drink. He didn't like the flavor of alcohol and he was one of those who enjoyed staying sober and laughing at the stupid antics of us drunk motherfuckers. Scooter was a bit more of a casual drinker. He got a drink, nursed it through most of the night, and usually left a party feeling buzzed but not drunk.

Me? I'm Barney Gumble.

Early on, we had met this cat named Robert. He was a friend of the lovely Mandy's (host of the party), and Scooter was chatting him up all night long. Robert was pretty cool. I came over and asked them, "Hey, how you guys doing?" and Scooter responds with "We're good. We're talking about comics." I think he was trying to lure me into the conversation, maybe to play wingman. I dunno. Things have gotten a little hazy at this point.

I stare at Scooter and Robert with a very serious look on my face. "Awesome," I say, "Comics RULE!" *insert requisite fist pump to accentuate the word 'RULE'*

Having finished the screwdriver, I decided I wasn't nearly drunk enough. So, I head back up to the bar. Now my friend Kurt is manning the bar.

"What can I do you for, my good man?" Kurt asked.

"I think I need something to drink. I'm not nearly drunk enough," I respond.

"Shot of vodka it is."

Kurt pours me a shot of vodka.

I down the shot of vodka.

"Nope, not drunk enough."

"Shot of vodka it is."

Kurt pours me a shot of vodka.

I down the shot of vodka.

"Nope, not drunk enough."

"Shot of vodka it is."

Kurt pours me a shot of vodka.

I down the shot of vodka.

"I think we're getting there." I say. I put my arm around a talking zebra that I befriended somewhere between the second and third shot and we stagger away from the bar.

(In case you couldn't tell, there was no zebra.)

I find Young Bob.

"You're drunk," Young Bob says. He has a mastery of the obvious.

"Yesh," I slur. At this moment, It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine) by R.E.M. is queued into the stereo.

"Oh my God," I say, wide-eyed. "Thish ish the besht shong! I know all the wordsh." I try to sing along, muttering and mumbling everything except for Leonard Bernstein (naturally).

Young Bob shakes his head. "Bitch, you couldn't do that sober. You're just embarrassing yourself, drunky."

"I got 'em all," I insist. "I jusht shang too fasht for you to hear."

What happened after this, I'm unsure. However, I know that Amy the Croatian Honey had left the party. At this point, I'm drunk AND horny. I start hitting on something close by. Now, when I say I'm drunk, I mean really fucking drunk. People, I started hitting on one of the Stankus girls. Swear to anything and everything I know that's holy, Stankus was their last name. I'm pretty sure Stankus is Latin for "disease-ridden sulfurous pit". Yes, I'm referring to that particular pit.

Finally, I end up out in the hallway. It's well past midnight, but it's before quiet hours (which started at 2 am), and I'm beginning to feel the copious amounts of vodka that are now coursing through my veins. As the Bolshevik Revolution was playing out in my liver, I felt the need to escape the pounding music and the close quarters. The hallway was a great place to do this.

Young Bob accompanied me. We were standing there, talking. Well, he was talking, I was slurring shit together into incohesive incoherency. There was a lull in the conversation, and as the Russian army continued pounding through my vasculature, my stomach suddenly turned into the Romanovs. They needed to get out of the country, and they needed to get out NOW!

Being that I'm a polite drunk, I simply walk away from Young Bob. He turns to tell me something, and I'm gone. I'm down the hall. A trashcan is in my sites. I walk over to it, stare at it, and then I fountain into it. And by fountain, I mean a raging torrent of alcohol-tinged vomit comes rushing out of my piehole, splattering noisily against the back of the trashcan, and landing in the bottom. I can identify dinner. I think I can identify lunch. It was brown. It was chunky. I remember it tasted like pasta sauce and vodka. The flavor clings to my palate to this day.

Not all of it went into the trash can. When I puke this violently, it comes out my nose, too, and so there was some left-overs on my upper lip. I needed help. I looked up. The only person around me was my nemesis: Vanzetti. Yes, he was related to that Vanzetti. For some reason, we strongly disliked each other.

But, I was desperate.

"Oh my God, Vanzetti, could you get me some paper towels?" I asked in my most pathetic voice. Vanzetti's girlfriend at the time lived on the same floor as the party, and he had walked down the hall to use the bathroom. I saw him as he was headed into the toilets. A few seconds later, he re-emerged, carrying some paper towels. I thanked him, wiped up, and proceeded to puke some more.

I heard Young Bob at the end of the hallway ask Vanzetti, "Is he throwing up." Later, Young Bob related to me that Vanzetti paused and then said with a look of horror on his face: "Oh. God. Yes."

Having emptied my stomach of everything, I was feeling better, but still drunk. I return to standing in the hall with Young Bob. The world is spinning. It's almost 2 am.

"We should get going," Young Bob says. I think he's more worried about the fact that I just puked up my internal organs than it being late.

"Just a sec," I said. I stopped the Stankus girl in the hallway. "315 Gallagher. It's almost 2 am. Come by before they lock the doors."

Young Bob and I wander back across the quad. Together, we mount the stairs to the third floor. All is silent. I pour myself into my room and strip because, hey, there's a Stankus on her way, right? I'm still powerfully drunk. I lay down in just a pair of red Indiana shorts. Sleep claims me immediately.

If there was a knock at the door, I'll never know. However, I do know that the fucking fire alarm went off at 3:15 am. And there I was, wearing only a pair of Indiana shorts that are indecently too short. I pull myself from the alcohol-fueled reveries and fall down the three flights of stairs to the safety of the outside. It is fucking freezing outside. I am wearing just a short pair of shorts. I am still drunk.

Finally, after fifteen minutes, we are allowed back in. I am cold. I am drunk. I am so cold and drunk, I cannot sleep. Finally, after an hour, I fall asleep. The next morning, I woke up sick. And hungover. And with a healthy distaste for vodka.


If this does not sate your thirst for awesome TMI stories, then check out all the other glorious tales of things we probably shouldn't tell at LiLu's home for the staunchy raunchy, TMI Thursdays!

Stuff

I have a bit of a dirty secret that I'm now going to share with you. For the past couple of weeks, I've been cheating on you. I know, I know. Where's the trust, eh, blogosphere? It's just that, every so often, I come across your chest a blog that is spectacular enough, I become--for the lack of a better term--infatuated. I read. And then I get bored because the author only updates once a day, yet the author drips with such a profound exceptionality that I want, nay, need more. The only way to get said fix is to dig through the archives.

This has happened recently.

People, I want you to meet Kristine. She's over there, waiting in the van. Now, originally, I caught a glimpse of her in someone's comments and thought "Holy shit! That looks like my attractive friend, Kristine! I better check this shizz out." Well, it turns out that she isn't my attractive friend Kristine. However, she's now my new attractive friend Kristine! She's smart, she's funny, she puts stuff on her kids' heads and takes pictures, she hates her asshole cats, and, like me, she is a MASTER--or will be someday soon. Unlike me, she will be a MASTER in a field where she can get a job in ten years, whereas I'll be living under a bridge, reciting the periodic table and cursing the far east.

While she's as sarcastic and foul-mouthed as they come *dreamy sigh*, apparently her former blog is even more foul-mouthed, even more sarcastic, and even funnier. Alas, it remains hidden, and since I at least pay lip service to people's desires to remain as anonymous as the internet allows, I have gone looking for it. However, I'm sure it was fantastic, like the Lord of the Rings acted out by ninjas and stuff.

Because awesome oozes from every pore on her body, she's recognized the content and character of this blog with a fabulous award. Behold, the James Frey Award!
She's right, you know. 95% of the stuff here is bullshit. The other 5% is dick jokes and Leelee Sobieski pictures.

So, join Kristine in her van. She drives it around, wanted by the government, and serving as a soldier of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find her, maybe you can hire Kristine to put shit on your kids' heads and take pictures.

Now, Gwentabulous over at Everything I Like Causes Cancer, posted a picture of her naughties yesterday. I'd say "unmentionables", but since I provided a link to the story, that pretty much supersedes "unmentioning", doesn't it?

Anyway, her challenge for today was to not tell a story revolving around shit, semen, sex or something else gross that starts with 's' (hooray alliteration!). Jesus, Gwen, you just knocked out 95% of my arsenal. Good thing I was planning on publically felating Kristine. Wait...

Gwen's challenge was to have us post pictures of our favorite sleeping shirts. I received mine rather recently. So recent, in fact, that it still carries the sweet, sweet smell of victory. Behold, the TRIVIA SHIRT!

Oh, oh, that's not the TRIVIA SHIRT you were expecting, is it? No, my friends. See, I won this shirt the other night when I went to Trivia Night at a local bar with the Comely and Buxom and Ailurophobic Boudicca and her friends from work. See, they had a three-round trivia contest (we placed third), but in between the contests were special mini contests. Do you want to know the question I answered correctly and quickly?

"What disease takes it's name from the Latin for 'bad air;?"

The answer, of course, is "malaria". I emboldened a couple of parts. Since you're here every Friday morning learning conjugations and shit, you know I'm all about the Latin. However, you probably didn't know that I'm all about the tropical diseases. It's true. I work on a "neglected disease" program at my company. I don't want to brag too much--especially since none of my compounds have done shit to the parasite--but we've pretty much taken Sleeping Sickness by the balls, swung it around the room a couple of times, kicked it in the grundle, and then, for good measure, while it's lying there on the floor, we've whipped it out and pissed right in its battered and beaten face. AWESOME!!!

Also, the person who introduced me to Yuengling, that sweet, nectarous lager from Eastern Pennsylvania, reads this blog and I wanted to taunt him with my victory. I'm expecting an email shortly that will read something like "Bastard."

An Irish Saint and a Confession

I have already detailed the life and times of St. Patrick (or was it Saint Palladius?), so I won't rehash old posts, merely provide you with the link. However, do remember that today is the feast day of the Patron Saint of Ireland, which means lots of drunken revelry coupled with the phenomenon I like to call "Erin Goes Bra-less" along with countless sad motherfuckers stumbling around bars strapping on fake accents and asking the fair, drunken lasses "Pardon me, dear one, but do ye have any Irish in ye? Would ye care for some more?" God, horny drunks are so creative.

I, however, won't be participating in such activities. Not that I wouldn't mind bedding a fair Irish lass--oh, wait, I already have one...wan, fair complexion, red hair and a filthy mouth all included! No, this whole drinking thing isn't for me, not any more. Oh, don't worry, I'm not going to get all high-and-mighty on your sinners asses, no, not today. The reason for my teetotalism isn't out of some overdevelop sense of higher morals, it's strictly physiological.

It's with a heavy, sober heart that I come before you and admit: I've developed a wicked allergy to hops.

If you know me, you know that I love beer. Not the macro-swill that you pound down at a tailgate in order to be able to stomach the sad state of affairs Bob Davie and Tyrone Willingham have put on the field...no, I love craft brews. I've sampled well over a thousand beers in my day from 37 different states and 17 different countries (if you count Scotland and Wales as their own countries, that is). I even drove way the hell out of my way in order to stop off at a crappy microbrewery in West Virginia so that I could add one more beer and one more state to the list.

That microbrewery trip was the one where I finally had to start facing up to the truth that I had a problem. See, with the merest sip of a beer these days, my throat begins to close, my breathing becomes ragged, and my stomach lurches. The sad thing is, I used to absolutely love my beers with hops. I've had 90 Minute IPA from Dogfish Head shot through Randall the Enamel Animal where the hops was so powerful, it felt like I could pick them from my teeth. I've had a slightly chilled Stone IPA where I thought, "Hmmm...yes, that's about right", despite the fact that Stone's beers are typically offensively hopped (as much as I love hops, some beers are ruined by an overabundance of their oils). Research even says that hops could be good for the heart and most likely they would exhibit positive anti-oxidant levels in your blood (hops are antioxidants for beer, thus their use as preservatives). But none of this is for me. Not any more.

60 Minute IPA is what the Gods themselves drink.
I used to run my own beer blog where I was attempting to review beers, breweries and beer-based books. I even used a picture of a naked woman festooned with strategically-placed hops as the "mascot" of said blog, but as the hop allergy became worse, I had to suspend my work and, with a heavy heart, delete my beloved blog from the blogosphere. Even now, I'm tearing up a little.

So, my friends, while you're out in the bars wearing your plastic green bowlers, pretending to love Guinness and pinching the asses of those ladies who had the bad foresight not to wear green tonight, I ask you to down at least one pint and think of me. I'll be at home sipping on my Diet Dr. Pepper and watching Notre Dame piss away their first-round NIT game.

Regardless of my personal afflictions, let me wish you all a Happy Saint Patrick's Day! Also, happy birthday to my old drinking buddy Pat, aka Dr. Assy. Hopefully, he got a replacement laptop for the one that was stolen from his apartment and can read this once more.

LooKKKKKKKKKKing BacKKKKKKKKKK

Do you remember what you were doing ten years ago, today? I don't remember, either, except that I know I was four days away from graduating from St. Joseph's College. I'll hazard a guess and say that I was drinking beer while on the toilet shitter in the Gallagher 1st middle stall, drinking a beer in my dorm room, Gallagher 117, doing something stupid and druken with partner-in-crime Will Shannon, and probably planning another clumsy, awkward pass at Jamie Bach[1] later in the day. I think I might have also destroyed a phone against the exterior of Gallagher Hall later tonight, and I'm also going to guess that there was, at some point, a drunken trip to the Trail Tree in or Grandma's late in the night for either a Big T Trucker Sandwich or Biscuits and Gravy (and an eggy sandwich if a certain priest-to-be came with us).

The reason for waxing nostalgic is that today is the 10th anniversary of Kerry Wood striking out 20 Astros in Wrigley Field. This instantly put his name on the baseball map and made us all wonder just how many World Series rings he would bring to the North Side of Chicago[2]. Unfortunately, as productive as Wood was/has been striking guys out, he's been just as productive when it comes to injuring himself. Elbows, wrists, shoulders...everything on Wood's body seems to have broken down at some point during his career. Blame Dusty Baker if you want to (and I do), but some of Wood's injuries have been completely non-baseball related, such as injuring himself in a hot tub.

Despite all this, Kerry Wood remains one of my all-time favorite Cubs players. I don't know why, either. Maybe I'm still locked in the nostalgic hope of seeing him achieving his potential. Maybe I keep thinking that some day he'll wake up, hop out of bed and decide that today is the day he's going to strike out 20 batters again (which would be really difficult, since he's been relegated to the bullpen these days). Maybe because his marvelous feat of 20 strikeouts came in those waning days of my college career, when things were looking most hopeful and promising and I had the whole world figured out. Maybe seeing Kerry Wood pitch takes me back to a happy place that I have locked away inside of me. I don't know, but he is, without a doubt, my favorite baseball player. Here in the Triangle, there is a city called Cary and, in Cary, there is a road called Cary Wood Dr. Ever since I saw that, I have looked for an affordable house on Cary Wood Drive, just to say I live there, because that would be so fucking cool, and all because of Kerry Wood.

Wood's career has been one of unfulfilled potential. However, if you look at the recent spate of baseball news and think back, Wood (from Texas and a high-strikeout pitcher) was compared to Roger Clemens (from Texas and a high-strikeout pitcher). It was thought their careers would follow similar paths and Wood would be racking up Cy Young's along with wins and World Series titles. Fortunately--thankfully!--it seems that Wood is nothing like Clemens, as the injury-prone body and extended stays on the DL would point toward a lack of using steroids and HGH, and, well, there doesn't seem to be a string of trashy women with hordes of skeletons stashed in their closets following Wood around.

For all the bad that has surrounded Kerry Wood's career, I'll never forget looking up through my Miller-Genuine-Draft-inspired haze and saying, "Holy shit, Will, this guy's struck out 20 batters. Hand me another.[3]" So, Kerry, here's to you, man. Happy Anniversary.

[1]: In case you were wondering, she looks a lot like the Snorg Tees girl, just with a smaller chest and incisors and a stronger proclivity to wearing knee-high stockings and very short skirts.
[2]: That would be a big, fat 0 and counting...
[3]: Obviously, nowadays, it would be most appropriate to toast Kerry's feat with a 120 Minute IPA from Dogfish Head Brewery, as it's 20% ABW. That's 1% ABW for every strikeout. I can do math, me.

B Double E Double R U N Beer Run...

God bless you, Wisconsin. God bless you. *wipes tear*

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=3311936

A Brief History of My Weekend

For something as monumental and epic as my past weekend, the tale can only be told in picture form. Being a cartophile, I've busted out the maps for all to appreciate.

First up, the map showing all the states I have visited. You'll find that Delaware and Maryland are new additions, bringing the total to 25. That's half the states. Score.

Second up is my "beer map", where I record every new beer that I've tried...at least by state. I found some stuff from Flying Fish Brewery in New Jersey and was quick to quaff a couple the same day. Total states "sampled": 30. Score again.

Final map speaks for itself. It's a map of all the states that I've gotten good and tuned up drunk in. Georgia gets honorable mention because I got drunk off two barleywines there, but I wasn't tuned up enough to be classified as "faced".
For anyone truly interested, a trip to Delaware is well worth it. I just wish that I had had more than a day to spend there.

EDIT: If you've been reading the comments section, you'll see that I inadvertently left off Illinois. It popped into my mind that my buddy Will and I went to Second City with several of our theater friends and we proceeded to pretty much try to drink the city of Chicago dry. I remember passing out on the bus only to wake up at some point chanting "Huzzah" and then getting lectured by a rather keg-shaped woman on the origins of the word "huzzah" and how it relates to "hooray". Memories are so much better when they're fractured...

I'm Glad I'm Not in Dixie, Hooray, Hooray.

Not a whole lot of things truly make me sad enough to shed a tear. Most of you know the big ones: gall stones the size of dimes, Brett Favre sort of retiring but not, extracting nosehairs, Scarlett Johansson wearing a shirt, etc...

But this is one of those moments akin to throwing an empty soda can at the foot of an American Indian.

Alabama legislature rejects higher abv in beers sold in-state.

Having just "popped the cap" ourselves in North Carolina, I was hoping that the "Free the Hops" movement would have gained some momentum (first it was Georgia, then North Carolina, and now both South Carolina and, sort of, Alabama are looking to shuffle off their archaic abv laws) and that the good people of Alabama would have decent beers to drink while preparing to head down to Gulf Shores for a week of merriment. No such luck for them, I guess (or for me, either, in case I ever vacation in Gulf Shores ever again, which was a nice little town, just devoid of any good beers). Hope you guys (and gals) love those 6% abv and under beers. Oh, yeah, and the stigma and stereotyping of being a bunch of backwards jackasses. There's that, too.

The truly sad thing is the ignorance thrown about, allegedly "in the name of the children". The worst: "All this bill will do is help our young people get dead faster."

Wow. I like the reasoning, though. Sure, craft and "gourmet" beers are usually more expensive and Budweiser and Miller are only the two most popular beers among underage drinkers (and all beer drinkers...huh...coincidence?), but the price won't be a deterrent. Young people will still find a way to drink these higher abv beers! It's not like they won't go to Tennessee, Georgia or Florida to get them under the current regime law. It will also allow people to get drunker faster, despite the fact that you won't be "drunker" faster, just "drunker" longer. But, what can you do? Aside from ship them some contraband Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA, that is.

The True Meaning of Science

I'm not overly fond of myself when I post cartoons and count that as a posting, but I have honestly been busy writing (and I'll give an update toward that this evening when I get home and get things settled down and taken care of there). I feel it's sort of a cheap way of "updating" my blog and it doesn't really give any insight into any of the wide range of subjects I dabble in here.

That being said, you can't argue with results like what the good Dr. Rat has found here.

I think we'd all be a little less skeptical if he had an LC/MS or IR to back up his findings. But he did reference physics, and we all know that physics is just a bunch of made-up hoo-ha filled with numbers that none of us can challenge.

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

Inspired by Eric's list of favorite brews, I thought I'd toss one out there, too.


To date, I've had something around 425 different beers. A far cry short of the 30,000 or so out there (which is the number I think I saw on Beer Advocate last time I logged in there). We also shouldn't mention that my beer list is woefully out-of-date, and that it's lacking nearly 75 entries, which are all written down, but not entered into any sort of database. Someday, I'll remedy that.

That's also not counting the nearly fifty brews I have sitting around waiting for me to drink. Something funny happens to me between the beginning of November and about now: I can't drink beer. No matter what, from the tamest pilsner to the most robust stout, my stomach just rejects them. I used to think it was only the hops that made me ill (whatever hops and/or additives Anheuser Busch puts in their beers, it curdles my stomach...all beers, across the board...and it's not just because they're a macrobrew...Hamm's doesn't curdle my stomach, nor does Blatz...in a blind tasting, I can identify the A-B brew just based on whether I feel like upchucking immediately after downing it). Now, I don't know what it is. But, around Easter time every year, I can drink again. My body is very odd.

So, with these nearly-500 beers in my memory banks, I always get asked the question: which is your favorite? Lord. That's like asking which of my children I love more, or who my favorite player on the '92 Hoosiers was...it can't be done!

In that light, I thought I'd offer a list of different styles and some of my favorite beers from those styles. Hopefully, if anyone stumbles upon this, this list will inspire them to go out and have a sampling of something I feel is tasty.

Wheat Ale: Oberon from Bell's in Kalamazoo, MI
American Pale Ale: Sawtooth Ale, Left Hand Brewing Company, Denver(?), CO
India Pale Ale: Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA, Milton, DE
ESB: Adnam's Suffolk Special Bitter, London, UK
Fruit Beer: Ruby Raspberry Wheat Ale, Mad Anthony's Brewing, Fort Wayne, IN
Spiced Beer: Post Road Pumpkin Ale, Brooklyn Brewery, NY
Brown/Amber: Nut Brown Ale, Carolina Brewing Company, Holly Springs, NC
Irish/Red: Four Horseman, Mishawaka Brewing Company, Mishawaka, IN
Lager: Yuengling, D.G. Yuengling and Sons, Pottstown, PA
Macro-lager: Sam Adams Boston Lager, Boston Beer Company, Boston, MA
Pilsner: Utica Club XX Pilsner, Matt Brewing Company, Saranac, NY
Porter: Edmund Fitzgerald Porter, Great Lakes BC, Cleveland, OH
Imported Porter: Flag Porter, London, UK
"Special" Porter: Oatmeal Porter, Highland Brewing Company, Asheville, NC
Stout: Storm King Stout, Victory Brewing Company, Downington, PA
"Special" Stout: Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout, Brooklyn BC, New York, NY
Special Release/Christmas Beer: Our Special Ale, Anchor Brewing, San Francisco, CA
Barley Wine: Old Crustacean, Rogue Ales, Portland, OR

You can tell I tend toward the darker beers, which is why not being able to drink between November and April really sucks. However, these beers are well cellared by then. Of all these, I'd probably choose barley wine as my favorite style, though ESB, IPA and Porter definitely ranks right up there. I chose Old Crustacean as my favorite only because it was the first, and much like the first girl who lets you unbutton her blouse, you always have a special place in your heart for that first beer that makes you say "Holy fuckin' shit this is good!" You'll also notice that I have a definite east-coast bias here; I haven't had a whole lot of beers from the west, but those that I have had, I won't complain about. Someday I'll get a beer from Idaho, I swear it.

Quick Thoughts

Just a few thoughts that ran through my head over the past few days. I'll have a more full review of the beer fest later (it was a blast), but in the meantime, here's this.

- I've pretty much decided that, if I can either get someone to watch Thomas for me or if he settles down a little bit, I'll probably coach Madeleine's soccer team next fall. Maybe this spring, if she wants to do spring soccer. I think Coach Doug's son will be moving on to the 7 & 8 year olds next year, so that would leave no one to coach what is now her team (apparently, there's no guarantee that you'll get the same players next year...harumph). Anyway, I guess I'm mad with power. My robot genius mind needs to teach kids.

- Joe Girardi interviewed with the Cubs. Offer him a contract. Now.

- If you discover a half of a watermelon in the back of your fridge that you forgot about, don't assume those big, black, sunken-in areas are seeds. That's probably mold eating away at the flesh of the fruit.

- There's not much more disgusting than mold growing on hot-dog chili. That's literally a "pick yer poison" matchup right there.

- I was reading up today about who would win in a fight between Brock Samson and Wolverine. Naturally, it's Brock Samson. Only Jesus can defeat Brock Samson, but only just barely.

- Speaking of Brock Samson, don't look him on the internet while at work. Apparently, there's a porn starlet whose last name is Samson, and her big old fakies pop up on the screen. Just a warning.

- No, seriously, get Girardi a contract.

- College basketball starts this weekend. Why the hell must the two best sports in the world coincide like this? Can't we push basketball back just a hair, so that March Madness becomes April Madness, and it takes up more of baseball?

- I really need to update my beer list.

- In fact, I need to update my webpage as a whole. Expect major overhauls within the month.

- I need a digital camera to better track my drunkenness at beer fests. And other worthy pictures.

- I've decided not to do NaNo this year. I was going to try and slam together the finish of The Boar War in order to get to the NaNo project. However, Boar War is coming along nicely, and I don't want to rush it. I'd rather take my time and do Boar War right and try to shop it. If that takes up part of November, sobeit. Overall, it'll make me a happier person.

- Never, ever, drink Steel Reserve. Ever.

That is all.

Gross Blog Negligence & Good Boar News

I'm very sorry.

Life beckoned.

(Un)fortunately, nothing truly exciting happened.

I mean, aside from further work on The Boar War.

Yes, actual progress.

And then I hit a snag. I got readdicted to playing this silly video game that I bought a few months ago. I started building up my weapons and all to try and get past this one point in the game. It became a bit of an obsession. I got past that point and then worked on taking the sword even higher. When I got the sword maxed out, I switched to a different sword, and then I broke it. And then I got pissed and shut the game off. So, I'm not speaking to the game currently.
So, you know what that means. Yep. I'm working on the book. And I've made a few adjustments to King of Thistles...er...Shadows. I keep forgetting that. Plus, I'm ThistleKing, not ShadowKing.

Ugh.

Anyway, I wrote the epilogue. It's a nice little wrap-up. If you've ever read the very ending of Lord of the Rings, in one of the appendices, Tolkien tells of what happened to the rest of the Fellowship. I just remember getting emotionally charged when Legolas builds his raft and sails past the Gray Havens with Gimli on board. That's what I tried to do with the epilogue. I basically gave a wrap up of what happens to the people on the quest in this book. I, of course, looked forward into the future and left the requisite holes in the story for a follow-up tale (I've already referenced it, but I haven't thought anything further on it). I don't want to pull a Robin Hobb and write something like "Fitz never lived in the castle ever again" only to find, a few books later, Fitz living in Buckkeep once more (not that I'm complaining...God knows I love the Fitz books, even if some people think he's way too whiny--a pox upon them, I say! (This is the part where I tell everyone who hasn't read the Fitz books to go buy them. Now! Fitz and the Fool rule, dawg. Even though, I know, no one likes a schill, Lisa)).

Not only did I do the epilogue, but I finished chapter five, chapter eight and chapter nine. I FINALLY found a way to start the beleaguered chapter seven and got about five pages into it before I decided that I really needed to finish a few of the chapters I had started. So that's why I doubled back and finished five and then pushed eight and nine to completion. I've also moved the part I had written for chapter seven to chapter ten. Very smooth transition and cuts the length of seven in about half and really works to weave several of the threads of the story together.

In all, I'm really happy with the progress I've made. And, hopefully, this week I'll top the 50,000 word mark, which is just about halfway (I'm thinking 120,000 should do it, and that makes a novel of about 400 to 450 pages (from estimates) and that's a good length for a first book, in my opinion). That leaves me roughly two-and-a-half months to complete everything before I start up NaNoWriMo (I've got a story picked out...I kind of like it). Can I do it? I hope so. I should also be able to push forward on chapter four and the two chapters I'm really deeply involved with, 12 (battle) and 13 (ties two threads together). Getting those done will really make me happy.

I also tried the Sam Adams Patriot/Brewer series. The porter was good, the dark wheat reminded me of a dopplebock, the ginger and honey beer was tasty and the root beer was horrid. The last was far too sweet for me. And I like malty stuff. Also found that Mad Hat is distributing here in North Carolina now. I didn't know which sixer to pick up, but then I saw the sampler pack. You know how that story ended. I really need to update my beer list...

Numbers for you (to track my progress):
Word count: 46818
Page count: 155

I will update later in the week. And hopefully it will be shorter than this one.

Wainscoting for One, please

I hung some wainscoting in my downstairs bathroom today. I did the three walls that don't have porcelein fixtures on them. In all, it was very tiring work, mostly because the bathoom is little, I had to get on my knees a lot of hammer paneling nails into the base of the wall, and of course that whole measure once cut twice thing. I will say that my measurements and cuts were pretty much dead on. The only time I had any issues was when I let my jigsaw wander a bit while cutting, so I would get tiny bows in my otherwise straight line. These were easily remedied, and I have to say, I'm pretty proud of myself. It'll look even better when I get the baseboards on and all that good stuff. I'm not looking forward to trying to cut around a sink, with all the pipes that come from the wall with it and all. The toilet is less of a worry, only because there is but one pipe that comes in for that, and I should be able to do that part pretty painlessly. Should being the operative term here.

I'm going on vacation next weekend for about a week and a half. I don't think I'll be able to check in, so be aware of that (especially if you're a certain history buff from Wisconsin who is planning on meeting up with me over the course of my trip back to the home country). I am, however, going to be taking my little notebook with me, so I can write out the epilogue. I have a twelve or thirteen hour drive ahead of me. I should be able to come up with what I want (I know the story I want to tell...it'll be short and full of denouement) and thenI can put it on the paper for typing later on. So, expect a big leap forward sometime after July 4th.

With that in mind, you'll understand that I've been really busy trying to get a bunch of stuff done at work. Consequently, with no children, I have plenty of time to stay late. I've been busting my ass in the evenings to try and get the precursors for the final products put together. It's almost like grad school, just without cyclopropanes. This has meant more nights of me coming home, crashing, and either watching television or playing a video game. Not a lot of writing.

I do, however, have some updates. Most of the work has been done in the infamous chapter five. That's the much-touted battle scene. It's coming together rather nicely right now, and, as anticipated, I'm typing much more quickly than in either of the other chapters I'm currently working on (four and seven) in which most of the action is spoken and not done. However, I'm apparently very good at writing dialogue, or so said my ex-girlfriend, Julie (who, by the way, I've been looking for on the internet lately, which is another reason why I haven't been writing much...distractions, distractions!) who got to read most of King of Thistles (about 2/3) when she was acting as my copy editor. Free editorial advice is great...except when she is not very used to the genre and has some issues trying to see where the story is going. *sigh*

Oh well.

Updates:
Word count: 29012
Page count: 96

Also, Sierra Nevada's IPA (#354) is mighty tasty. You should drink some for yourself.
New South's Pale Ale (#353)...not so much.

Celerity and Alacrity...neither of which you will find at Durham Regional

Apparently, I went to a really lousy ER the other night. My wife heard it from a fellow in a wheelchair which comes to her store quite often that Durham Regional = bad, Duke = better. However, Durham Regional hasn't washed surgical instruments in hydraulic fluid nor have they mistakenly given a little girl the wrong heart and lungs for a transplant. At least they haven't done both in the past three years.

Anyway, many thanks to Mr. (soon to be Dr.) Will Shannon for his wishes for my speedy recovery. I'm hoping to have this thing taken out this week or next. I need to call my doctor and get his thoughts on this.

On to the updates! I've finished chapter six. I jumped ahead. Over the weekend, I wrote in chapters four, five, six and seven. I bounced back and forth (like Skulk on an acid trip) and expanded all four of them by several pages, but I couldn't get into any one chapter and form a "groove". So, I worked on all of them, switching whenever the mood or an idea grabbed me and I felt the need to do it. So, chapters one, two, three and six are done. I pushed the "original" six back to seven, which is my second human-based chapter (after one) and introduces the Sunderman House, which is about the only truly noble and honorable house left in the northern kingdom. We also get a peek at the regent...and he's a piece of work, let me tell you.

Anyway, here's the updated numbers:
Word count: 27770
Page count: 91

If you're going on those numbers, by what I'm shooting for, by the words, I'm about a third to a quarter done. By the pages, I'm about 1/6 to 1/7 done. but, in all honesty, the work is done when I say so. I need to pick out an epilogue (since I have a prologue...which is also done). I think it should probably be a "legend" like I started with. It should be short. It might focus on the fate of the Boar Clan, since they're the boggarts that start this whole mess.

Oh well. Random thoughts at the end there.

In case anyone else is keeping track...I also had beers number 350 and 351. Sam Adams White Ale and Butte Creek Winter Ale. The White was very tasty. I can see how these wheat ales are linked to summer. Fresh and crisp and spicy. Very good. Well done, Jim Koch!