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posted by admin on Jun 10

World Series of Beer Pong Satellite Tournaments are taking place this month. See here for details. I am attempting to talk my roommate into driving to Tempe at the end of June but it seems like people who read this might be interested in the Baltimore and Boston ones. I believe they all offer cash prizes and a free entry into the WSOBP V in Vegas New Years Day 2010. Research that yourself though.

Do you really want to live your life without a beer pong championship? What will your children say?

posted by admin on Feb 6

What the hell happened to Sam Adams? Not long ago it was in the conversation for my favorite beer. Now every Sam Adams I drink tastes half-skunk and of lesser quality then what I remember. Has the prolific rise of the micro-brewery exposed me to a quality level that Sam Adams never had or has Sam Adams growth into a national brewery changed their recipe for cost and transportation purposes? I have no answer and can only judge that I have not enjoyed a Sam Adams in a good three years if not more.

I wish I knew the answer to this but feel it will forever remain a mystery. I’d like to hear that they’ve tweaked the recipe so I can simply give up on them but until I know that for a fact the shadow of a memory of a taste exists in my mouth and every time I buy a Sam Adams, filled with hope, it is in service of that memory. Much like an unsolved murder I know, I feel, the real Sam Adams is out there waiting, waiting for rescue, waiting to regain it’s place at the forefront of American beers.

I believe in Sam Adams. I believe in Harvey Dent.

But if Sierra Nevada goes down this path it will rip my heart out. I will become a shell of the glorious beer drinker I am now.

posted by Mike on Dec 19

In the past thirty two minutes two rather unique and entertaining things happened to me.

First, my new roommate and I were at Best Buy picking up a kick ass TV for our new apartment. We walked up to the register and had the following exchange:

Me: Should I get it?

Roommate: No, I can get it.

Me: You sure, dude?

Roommate: Yeah, I got it.

The cashier found this a little weird since we were treating a $600 TV like a bar tab at Chili’s. Highly amusing.

#2: To celebrate the new aquisition I stopped and picked up a six-pack of Sierra Nevada. Unfortunately I arrived home to realize we have no bottle opener in our new apartment. After shredding my knuckles attempting to use keys to gain access to the magical liquid within the brilliant idea hit me to use actual tools! 30 seconds and a pair of plyers later and I’m enjoying beer with the Purest Ingredients and of the Finest Quality.

posted by Mike on Nov 3

I finally feel recovered from this weekend.

Friday morning I drove six hours to my girlfriend’s in Harrisonburg, VA for Halloween party #1 of the weekend. Between my obsession with sports jerseys as a kid and a trip to townie Wal-Mart we were set on costumes. I went as a “Horny” Referee (people are always too politically correct to mention this part of long-distance relationships) and my girlfriend went as Steve Beuerlein. I’m partially anti-couple costumes but I am very anti-repeat costumes. I have to make an exception for my girlfriend going as Beuerlein. First, you have to understand, we’re not talking about some bullshit Champion mess jersey with decal designs you wore in the backyard. Wait, scratch that, first I need to explain that Steve Beuerlein was a journeyman QB in the early and mid-90’s. If he was playing today he’d be on Tampa Bay or San Francisco. People who drafted Tom Brady in Fantasy Football would have become very interested in Beuerlein. Anyway, this is an authentic jersey complete with stitched on numbers, logos and name my girlfriend wears. The jersey’s even cut to fit around pads! I cannot even begin to explain why I own this or how awesome it is that I own it. 

Now this leads to the second reason the costume fills every Halloween with instant amusement: it is a lock every guy at a party hits on the girl wearing the insanely obscure, authentic football jersey. And nothing is as entertaining as watching drunk assholes being shot down by the girl you’re with. Seriously, by the end of the night I feel like George Clooney. The party this year wasn’t quite like that because we already knew most of the people but the memories live on in my ego from a year ago.

We started the night by ordering some  Sicilian style pizza which is the greatest food ever. If you don’t know what I’m talking about imagine eating a slice of pizza that makes $100 dollar bills rain down from the ceiling every time you take a bite. Seriously, it is that good. (Can we take a moment to appreciate the fact I avoided the easy but crude “like eating a piece of pizza while you have an orgasm” joke? That took all of my self-restraint.) Somewhere around you probably delivers this pizza, get online and order immediately. 

We arrived at the party and I mingled poorly before giving in and diving headfirst into the keg. Do you ever have those perfect drinking nights? Through some stroke of luck you manage to stay perpetually buzzed while never veering too far into the drunk category. I love those nights, you can talk about the same stupid shit for three hours and never be bored. Friday was one of those nights. Unfortunately, this led to some false confidence the next day. But we’ll get to that.

We have a great time at the party, probably left around 12:30 or 1. At which point I gave two other people rides home. I desperately want to buy a Breathalyzer for these situations because I had been drinking all night and felt fine. And not “I’m really drunk and think I can do anything” fine but normal fine. Maybe, that’s what happens when you talk to people at a party instead of standing in a corner drinking yourself into oblivion. This may warrant further research in the former since I have a PhD in the latter.

The next morning we ate Count Chocula for breakfast. I love America. I ate another slice of Sicilian for lunch and headed out for DC where I would be playing the part of Jan Wolfhouse from Beerfest in a group costume. We even had an Indian guy.

I spent the afternoon watching football and hanging out with a bunch of friends I hadn’t seen in five months. When my emotions run high I eat and drink whatever’s in front of me. Sometimes this creates problems. You can probably see where this is going given the over-confidence Friday night gave me in my drinking abilities.

We went to a huge Halloween party some friends of ours throw every year and as always it kicked ass. My old roommate Liz and I put up a decent showing on the Beer Pong table despite both having to shake off  a significant amount of rust. I mingled for a bit before drunkenly thrusting myself into a flip cup game. Since I cheat at flip cup my skills returned much quicker and my team rolled through some victories. I was talking to the girl I was matched-up against when several things hit me all at once. Suddenly I was very drunk, depressed about being very drunk and could not tolerate talking to another annoying bitch at the flip cup table. I have a serious problem where if you aren’t entertaining me, I hate you.

I stumbled away and summoned the friend who’s couch I was crashing on outside and informed him of my plan: I’d metro back to his apartment and drive two hours to see my girlfriend. Fortunately, he’s known me for a while so he took this in stride before slowly talking me down another path. Mainly, going to Ben’s Chili Bowl and getting chili dogs. He went inside to explain his disappearance to a few people while I debated my options. I called my girlfriend and woke her up to complain, “I want to come see you but Drew won’t let me.” This was at 12:15. She convinced me of several flaws in my plan, namely that if by some miracle I made it to her place when I drunkenly woke her up at 3 in the morning she would not be happy to see me. In hindsight this is understandable.

Anyway, this is my one regret of the night (scratch that, I also regret not eating Jumbo Slice). I bailed without saying bye to a bunch of people but considering that’s how I typically behaved while I lived in DC they shouldn’t be too surprised. Speaking of, does anyone else have this problem? And by this I mean the following (I may start using only pronouns, no more of that amateur shit for me). Sometimes I get bored-drunk. Everything feels pedestrian and beneath me and staying where I am another minute is torture beyond measure. I can only think of a handful of other times this has occurred (one being a rather unique New Years Eve in New Zealand) and I really don’t understand it. Within five seconds things switch from incredibly fun to unbearably boring. Level of drunkenness doesn’t seem to matter and it’s not that I’m tired but I have lost ALL interest in doing what I am doing. My only theory is that I hit a metaphorical “pitch count” when I’m talking to people I don’t know and can only be gregarious until I hit my count. At which I point the coach heads out to the mound and my night is done. How obvious is it that I already miss baseball? Does this happen to anyone else? Am I just really weird? That seems possible.

The next morning I left about 7:45 to drive the 8 1/2 hours back to Georgia. Because Virginia is run by fascists I got a fucking speeding ticket. It’s my first ever. It sucked, I really don’t recommend it. The worst part was having another six hours to drive where I 100% could not be pulled over. It was a very long drive.

But a fun weekend.

It’s not a habit, it’s cool I feel alive

posted by Mike on Oct 29

I realize in my haste I left a few important details about the wedding. Namely, that it was awesome. I saw a ton of friends I hadn’t spoken to since graduation and everyone seemed to be doing really well, half of them seemed to be engaged to really cool people. 

The ceremony lasted 40 minutes. Knowing this going in I was dreading it but it actually moved along quite briskly and very much focused on the bride and groom. Initially I thought I’d gone sentimental watching my two friends up on the alter but I happened to be sitting next to one of the most cynical, unsentimental people in the world and he agreed the ceremony was quite nice and never felt like it dragged (unlike many other ceremonies). It was also hot as hell in the church (irony?). Is this a requirement for weddings? It seems to be.

I felt a little guilty about the reception since apparently every choice they made was to ensure my happiness. First the bartender pours me one of my many free Longboard Lager’s of the night. I love this beer but have never had it on tap. It was a life affirming experience. Next the appetizers were various meats on a stick. Which, you know, hey, meat on a stick, can’t go wrong with that. It’s easy, it’s portable, it’s delicious. I didn’t think it could get better until the buffet featured almost every animal I could imagine wanting. It was like I had wandered into a place, sat down with the menu and when they waiter came over I said, “Screw it! Bring me everything!”. This is not hyperbole, I can’t imagine what else I would have wanted (Maybe some chicken nuggets but this was a classy establishment). I felt like the fat guy in The Meaning of Life.

I think the highlight of the night for me was when my girlfriend and I pretty much were the only people on the floor dancing while they played Hall ‘n Oates “Maneater”. Rest assured there was singing while we danced. I think I’ve finally discovered what my place is at weddings, though. My girlfriend loves to dance but I’m not a huge fan. Considering the rest of the year she has to watch every sporting event I want to this is a pretty good trade off (except during the NBA Playoffs, I think they last way, way too long I can’t imagine how long it must feel when you just don’t care). So this means I’m out on the dance floor at wedding receptions. I have little rhythm, no dance moves and a rigid stick up my ass so I do not look smooth out there. But this weekend I figured out that’s okay, that’s my job. I go out there so ever other guy in place sees me and says, “Shit, I’ve got to be better then that.” and ventures out to the dance floor which equals a better wedding for everyone. Yes, I actually do rationalize the world in such a solipsistic way. 

I am still bitter though. In life there aren’t many times when you know you could do something great and I know I could have given a kick ass toast at this wedding. Now in the interest of full disclosure I probably round out the second dozen on the list of people who could have given a toast at the wedding but I promise that mine would have easily been in the top three in terms of quality. I will always be bitter about this. Not towards the bride and groom but at life for being such a bitch. 

On the plus side, I didn’t have to follow the groom’s father. That was a toast that brought the room down. Half the guys in the crowd were teary eyed by the end and most of the girls were wrecked. I take some solace knowing my toast could only have been second best. But I’m still bitter.

posted by Mike on Sep 3

I am a notoriously slow adapter to cell phone evolution and as such have been rocking it 2001 style for some time. Last summer I took a road trip with some friends and forgot my charger. We stopped at a Verizon store and the saleswoman laughed at me when I showed her my phone, they hadn’t carried accessories for that model for years. Rest assured she did little to hide the pure disdain in her voice. Fortunately, we drove briefly through Arkansas where the lone gas station we stopped at carried six year old cell phone chargers. This will color my perception of Arkansas forever.

Anyway. I’ve got a new phone. It even has a camera, so now I’m living in 2004. I still have the same number so when you call it will still be me ignoring you. My old phone existed in a cell phone purgatory between life and death so the new phone is beyond justified but it still makes me sad. This phone has seen some crazy times in my life and I’ll miss it. Most of all I’ll miss the saved text messages from the past few years and thought I’d revisit them as an obituary to a fallen comrade (that’d be the phone). Some are hilarious, some sentimental, some bizarre but if you sent me one of these it made my life happier over and over since you sent it. 

A few have been left out to protect the guilty. Or because I’m lazy.  

May 13th, 2006 - 12:09 AM - “Not getting you a beer” - Dave         

 I was out in Georgetown with a couple friends at a two-story bar. The first floor was empty but the second packed to the walls because Georgetown is filled with pretentious, illogical assholes. We started taking turns getting our drinks from the downstairs bar because the people we were meeting were bombed and refusing to leave the second floor. My friend Dave heads down and has been gone for twenty minutes when I finally receive the above text message. Obviously, he met a girl. Dammit.         

Meanwhile, upstairs I’ve been talking to this cute Indian girl who works with a friend of a friend. I have a girlfriend so I’m just killing time until Dave brings my beer. Dave’s not bringing my beer. I excuse myself to the bar. The girl follows, apparently she’s mistaken my aloofness for GAME. This happens to me way too much. She decides we need to do shots of tequila. I decline because there is no way I am buying a drunk girl I don’t know a $10 shot so I say I don’t want to do any shots. She offers to buy them. I decline again, she offers to buy me a beer and a shot if I’ll do the shot with her. What!? Girls really are into assholes. I acquiesce because that’s a hell of a deal and I am very poor. We do the shots and I start working on the beer. This girl proceeds to buy me another beer and another two shots. She’s bought me five drinks in about an hour. Around this time my friend Dave finally shows his face again.         

The girl he’s been buying drinks for all night just bailed with her friends, he didn’t even get a number and now he’s pissed and looking to leave. So I pull the same stunt on the girl buying me drinks and get the hell out. I feel kind of bad about that but, hey, I have a girlfriend and none of it was my idea. Anyway, I love this message because the sending and receiving of the message transformed both our nights so radically and I know it pissed Dave off.

Some of that story may be incorrect. My memory is somewhat incomplete.  

June 28th, 2006 - 11:25 PM -  ”Best cab drive ever! i am back now :)” - Amy          

Days before moving into our new house in DC my roommates and I met at our favorite bar to have a beer pong competition to decide how we picked rooms in the house. I won. Not an essential point to this story. We had a couple drinks afterwards but it was a weeknight so a few of us grabbed a cab back to Virginia. That’s when the fun started.       

Our cab driver, a well-dressed African, was in his late twenties, early thirties spoke English with a hip, foreign accent and blasted hip-hop. Three of us in the back he takes off down the road, turns to look at us and asks, “Do you guys like beer?”. I assume he’s commenting that he picked us up in Adam’s Morgan and we have clearly been drinking so we answer to the affirmative since denial seems implausible. Judging our inebriation and ready affirmation he grabs a six-pack of Heineken from the floor, cracks open four and hands three back to us and starts drinking. When in Rome.

“Do you like to dance?”

Well, not particularly but this hardly seems the time for inhibition. “Yes, I do like to dance.”

“Then let’s dance!” 

And he cranks the music up and we all start dancing while we drink our Heinekens and fly down 18th St in Washington DC. Suddenly, he slams the car to a stop behind another cab. Runs out, yells at the cab driver, soon returns with an enormous wad of cash and we off we go again drinking and dancing our way back to Virginia.

What tip do you leave after that cab ride?

November 17th, 2006 - 8:52 PM - “Look to la luna” - Jay

If you’ve played Mortal Kombat II this should need no explanation.  

April 26th, 2007 - 9:33 PM - “you = gay” - Jay

May, 21st 2007 - 12:25 AM - “You = really gay” - Jay

Thanks, buddy!

 August 14th, 2007 - 10:03 PM - “David and I just got engaged!” - My Sister         

Awwwwwwww!  

June 2nd, 2008 - 7:26 PM - “Bacon?” - William       

William likes bacon. And gin.   

You have no idea how many hookers i’m gonna buy ~ Andrew

posted by Mike on Aug 27

I don’t think people believe me when I tell them I find my life ridiculous. To them I say bullshit!

Friday night, my last in LA for a little while, my friend Jay and I checked out the single most brilliant stage production in the history of American theatre: Point Break Live. Point Mother-Fucking Break. Live.

I understand if you need to sit down.

Over the top doesn’t even begin to describe the experience. We walk in the door and are strongly encouraged to purchase a “Point Break Live Survival Kit” for a buck. I’m already several beers in so of course we buy them. After a shot and a beer we open our survival kits and find:

(1) Poncho
(1) Napkin
(1) Fake $1 With Patrick Swayze’s Face
(1) Fake $5 With Keanu Reeves’ Face

The money’s for when we get robbed during the show. The poncho will also be important.

Jay and I grab another beer and wait for the show to start. The place fills up and you can tell everyone is half-drunk and ready to laugh their ass off.

The show starts. The director asks for audience members to come up on-stage and audition for the role of Johnny Utah aka Keanu Reeves. Jay goes up and fucking wins the role. It was close until he quoted a line from “A Walk In The Clouds”. The crowd went nuts and ever other contestant left the stage in shame. That’s why I fucking love Jay.

Fucking hilarious barely describes the next two hours. During intermission a few girls are asking me about Jay until they realize I care significantly more about my two Amstel Lights then anything they could possibly say. I’ll defend myself here because I have a girlfriend but in all honesty the building could have been on fire with Scarlett Johansson giving free blow jobs outside and you couldn’t have moved me from the bar. Anyway the show wraps up, I take a piss, grab two more beers and wait for Jay.

The place is emptying out when Jay comes out and says, “Hey, let’s hang out back stage for a bit.” Sounds good to me because that sounds like a place with beer. The next thing Jay says floors me, “They have free meatball sandwiches, oh, and Kirsten Dunst and Justin Long are back there too.”

“Holy shit, that’s awesome!”

And thirty seconds later my first meatball sandwich of the night is gone.

I look around and Jay’s taking pictures with the crew, trying to see how many free souvenirs he can walk off with and looking cool while his jackass friend wolf’s down sandwiches.

Jay is the fucking man.

For the next thirty minutes about 15-20 people are hanging out backstage. Justin Long and Kirsten Dunst seemed cool enough, Kirsten gave me a high-five when she left because I must have looked like someone who didn’t have a meatball sandwich in his pants.

The next morning I wake up at 5:45, shower, throw on my pants from the previous night, say bye to Jay who gives me look that clearly says “Why the fuck would I want to see you at 6:30 in the morning?”, and head to the rental car place. After I drop off the car, I’m sitting on the shuttle to the airport shocked that I’m going to make my flight when I finally notice my right pants leg is covered in fake-fucking-blood.

I guess my poncho had shifted during the performance and failed to protect me from an explosion of surfer-dude blood. Hung-over, exhausted and seemingly covered in blood is 100% NOT the way to arrive at the airport. It’s also problematic if your destination after landing is a party thrown by one of your girlfriend’s professors. I rolled up about 40 minutes late because it’s one thing to tell a story but a whole different enchilada to be the story.

So, yeah, I’d recommend Point Break Live.

Dance, fucker!

posted by Mike on Jun 25

I’ve been brewing my own beer over the past few several weeks and Monday it was finally ready for tasting. After confirming it did in fact look like beer, smell like beer and taste like beer I loaded the fridge up for a final week of intoxication in DC. Last night ended up being the perfect time for a beer binge.

First up was an episode of Seinfeld I had never seen before. An NYU student interviews Jerry and mistakes George for his gay partner. Needless to say hilarity ensues. I need to go through an episode list for Seinfeld, I assume I’ve seen them all but then gems like this pop up. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

At this point I had eaten dinner and enjoyed my beer but was curious about the alcohol content of the beer. For all I knew my concoction had turned into O’Doul’s (which now comes in a wonderful Amber that no one will drink either). In the name of science I sacrificed my sobriety and started pouring ‘em back.

The College World Series started and the rest of the night was spent flipping back and forth to check out this crazy series. It’s too bad I’ll miss the final game tonight. College baseball is much more unpredictable and explosions of runs happen at any time.

My main focus for the night was Wipeout. MXC is one of my all-time favorite shows so I was hoping Wipeout would capture some of the witty writing and general insanity of MXC.

That’s clearly what they’re trying to do but giving the show an actual structure kind of spoils the fun. The contestants are trying to win $50,000 but I don’t care about that; I just want to watch people fall down. Another problem is at an hour the show runs too long. Too much time is spent on each event. They need to tighten up the show to 30 minutes, run two episodes and just be done with it. The hosts, ESPN’s John Anderson and John “But Yoda, I’m not gay” Henson do a solid job but simply can’t match the zaniness MXC could offer in it’s overdubbing. I’m interested to see where they go with it and watching cocky assholes eat it on big red balls is an enjoyment MXC never provided but I’m not sure if the show will last in the long haul for me. There are only so many Tuesday nights I can drink that heavily.

posted by Mike on Jun 19

posted by Mike on Jun 12

Last night my monthly book club meeting took place. We read Heat. The book was quite good but left several intriguing questions demanding to be answered. Most notably, is it possible to drink that much wine?

Throughout the book people tell stories of nights out and frequently describe their drinking in terms of cases of wine. Example, “I knew we were in trouble when I realized we’d entered our second case of wine.” That’s two people drinking over a case of wine. At least 6 bottles per person. That seems an outrageous, unrealistic way to live. Now when one of these people is famous chef Mario Batali, whose appetites for many forms of intoxicants are legendary, I’m inclined to believe but it still left us wondering; while eating how feasible is it to down half a case of wine?

If you know me you can probably see where this is headed.

I’ve stepped up to the plate with a friendly wager. Six bottles of wine, six hours. I can eat anything and everything. No vomiting as the point is to determine if in the course of an enjoyable evening one can consume this quantity of wine. We settled on 6 in 6 based on passages in the book. I believe under the right circumstances this can be done with ease. The main struggle will be eating the appropriate amount and preparing the right food to eat. I’m leaning towards chicken wings, steak, bread and a shit load of celery. I don’t plan on forcing down the wine but letting the natural flow of the evening take me down this road. I figure after four hours I can evaluate my progress and level of inebriation before finishing off potentially lethal quantities of wine. Time will tell. I have two weeks to prepare.

Somebody cue the Rocky music.

Disclaimer: I do not advocate planned binge drinking. I actively despise my internal organs and seek to punish them. As proof of this I offer up the fact that I recently paid money to see You Don’t Mess With The Zohan. Six bottles of wine will be nothing after that.