Moonbat Central

Spam-a-Lot

2007-03-24T23:36:00.000-07:00

I have found that I have a morbid curiosity about my morning allotment of e-mail. The job that I hold has had several previous incumbents, and I am the successor recipient of their now-defunct e-mail accounts. Making matters more interesting, all of our e-mail addresses, defunct or otherwise, were or are published out on the web. This means that the little web-bots that scour websites looking for valid e-mail addresses always find mine, and since spammers already had the previous addresses, the net result (pun intended) makes my inbox most closely resemble a landfill.

Every so often, I will click on something just to see if my machine will explode or to discover whether the latest incarnation of the Nigerian Scam is any better than it was a couple of months back. It usually is exactly the same…with some very minor name adjustments. As it turns out, I get a lot of mail from former government officials holding billions in ill-gotten funds trying to leave countries whose names I can scarcely pronounce. Apparently, I am their only hope. Which is not a good thing, if true, because I delete their plaintive pleas along with the rest of the spam.

I notice that much of what I receive consists of requests from online banks or payment facilitation websites to “update my account” or face a “suspension in service.” The fact that I do not have money in these banks nor use these services apparently has little to do with why I get the mail, but I take a certain amount of pleasure in the thought of “updating” information that is entirely bogus and made up on the spot. I figure if they choose to waste my time, I can waste some of theirs. And then I figure that there are at least thirty ways for them to give my laptop a virus, and let the thought drift away.

I have to admit that there is a certain small ingenuity in these scams. If you spread out the spam over a large enough assortment of e-mail addresses, rather like manure on a fallow field, something is likely to grow from it. Somewhere, at some time, some halfway credulous person will get one of these requests for update and enter their real account information, whereupon bells ding, the clouds part, the spammer hits a jackpot, and the unwary soon discover that their 401(k) has gone to support the lifestyle of a twenty-five year old college dropout who spends the day hacking, drinking Rockstars, and surfing e-Bay for mint-condition Star Wars action figures. This is why, on my PC at home, I always let the cursor rest over the top of the link they want me to follow, just to see what it actually connects to.

Usually, what looks like this:
www.paybuddy.com/update.html

actually ends up being: www.server.boogersnot.ghana.xddkmo.ak.org/snn6654/line?221zbqldn238/frezone.grapnal/88473.html

The thing is, you can name a link anything you choose, and they do.

I am also greatly fascinated by the assortment of computer products purported to be available for immediate purchase. Copies of Windows Vista can apparently be bought online for pennies on the dollar; Adobe programs of one sort or another are free as the air, and anything made by Norton can be downloaded for free if your last name starts with either a vowel or a consonant. Umlauts, apparently, need not apply.

These websites obviously prey on the gullible, the money-conscious, the bargain-hunters, the people who see UFOs on camping trips…in short, anyone who has ever haggled for an “antique” at a garage sale and found the product was made in Korea for considerably less than the bargained price.

Then there is the plethora of spam e-mails promoting impossibly cheap medications for everything from erectile disfunction to…well, erectile disfunction. That seems to be the most significant source of current spam. Buy Viagra for five dollars a pop. Cialis for ten. Or less. Painkillers, uppers, downers, screamers, and laughers...all available at cut-rate prices.

Of course, the likelihood that anyone purchasing these products would receive the real drugs probably approaches zero, particularly if you include both lack of response and the delivery of sugar pills.

As it turns out, financial advice is also available through my cluttered inbox. Huge profits are available through immediate investment in companies that I somehow am unable to find on the AMEX. New franchises can be purchased for pennies on the dollar that will make me a millionaire hundreds of times over, and all I need to do is “Dare to Achieve!”

Of course, I also need to send them money.

The latest curiosity I have found is that many of these spam e-mails—maybe even most of them—appear to be automatically generated. Very often, below the spam itself can be found a lengthy series of sentences, apparently drawn from some story or another. Many of these stories seem to be vaguely Victorian in feel, and a growing number of them appear to have a considerable amount of foreign writing with no discernable subject. This means either of two things: we are being spammed by machines operating on their own, or Eastern Europeans have joined everyone else on the planet in perpetuating this insanity.

And it is a form of insanity that seems to have no end. Snail mailboxes get pounded with coupons and advertisements; e-mail accounts are slammed with something similar. I am certain that we are going to start getting bombed with IM and text message spam, and it might be happening now, except that I don’t IM much and never text. And the thing is, even spam is avoidable, except for this: I used a computer, a Mac desktop, in fact, to write this. So, as I see it, my choices are pretty simple. I can stop using a computer, avoid IMs and text messages, and leave my mailbox unexamined, or I can accept that I’m part of the problem and try to make a buck on the margins.

Anyone wanna buy a bridge, cheap?

Science and the Certainty of Knowledge

2006-11-30T16:54:00.000-08:00

I am discovering that the more things I learn and the more things I know, the less I truly understand about much of anything.

This is not a paradox. We are never so certain as when we are young and know comparatively little or old and believe we know it all. Certainty appears to rest primarily on a predominance of information slanted in one direction or another. It is also usually accompanied by a feeling of comfort at being on the “right side” of the debate. My own special case was the daughter who had been exposed to fairly strident climate change propaganda and “knew” that catastrophic global warming was occurring and that mankind was the cause. The fact that she was willing to listen to information that balanced out the scales is more attributable to her trust in her dad than to an innate drive to seek more information. But she did listen, and now she is unsure what she believes is really going on.

Welcome to maturity, sweet one.

Maturity is the point in your life where everything you “know” probably ought to be held to the basic skepticism that science requires. There are facts that are immutable, and then there are theories that account for the facts and honestly attempt to explain them and place them in context. Science requires that discovery of any fact that can no longer be accounted for in a theory means that the theory must be discarded. It no longer fully describes reality; it cannot stand.

In that context, then, it is not science when a researcher misstates information that, if truthfully presented, would bring his pet theories or beliefs into question; nor is it science when someone espouses a particular theory and disregards or ignores inconvenient truths that would destroy the theory, as our former vice-president does in his remarkably mendacious movie. These sorts of things are debatable and one side or another can be closer or farther away from the truth as it exists, but it is not legitimate to try and enlist science to your cause if you disregard the scientific method.

The intellectual is a special case that tests the rule, but does not obliterate it. Intellectuals can be viewed within the same context as old people – they know it all, they are not shy about debate, and they believe that anyone who thinks differently than they do on a given issue is obviously wrong and quite probably willfully so. If the former, then they are stupid; if the latter, they are evil. Either way, intellectuals are not interested in facts per se, except as they buttress their arguments.

Facts, however, are stubborn things. We can deny them. We can inveigh against them. We can even begin revolutions or commence pogroms to try and change them. But they still exist, and they still must be examined.

And no amount of wishing will negate them

The Charm of Distance

2006-11-30T16:51:00.000-08:00

It is a curious thing that while so much has changed here in Idaho since I was a boy, very few of those changes have turned out to be unequivocally for the better. That is pretty much a function of the fact that life is a series of trade-offs, not recognizably superior and inferior choices. Growth, for instance, means larger economies and more opportunity, but it also means more people and less open land. Fortunately, most of Idaho remains wide-open space, and however much certain areas appear built up and developed, there is still a vast amount of territory that is largely unused in any human sense, so people in Idaho are used to things being farther apart here than in other states. And there is nothing at all wrong with that. In fact, there is a significant charm in distance.

It is also true, of course, that distance in Idaho isn’t what it used to be.

The roads and highways thirty years ago were far less traveled and more than a little sketchy in places, but the compensation was that you could motor along pretty much at your own pace without someone gesticulating frantically in your rear view mirror that you really ought to be moving a very great deal faster. Moving onto and off of a highway was an exercise in grace and fluidity, rather than an instance of taking your life into your hands, and since the Interstate speed was federally mandated at fifty-five mph, there was only so fast you could go regardless. As a result, much of the journey from one place to the other consisted of sightseeing.

The only sights you see now in passage are the ones you get, blindingly, when you are passed going seventy by a car traveling eighty-five. Or ninety.

Distance can also be measured by the means of communication. When I was a good deal younger, we all had phones, just as we do now, but I also remember that we were on a party line for the first year or so when we lived in Pocatello. A party line, for those who have never experienced one, was a telephone line shared by several households. My understanding is that people tended to keep calls businesslike and guarded for fear that Mrs. Grundy was listening in.
Today, there is scant concern about people eavesdropping (even if they do, which they do); instead, the frustration concerns when people call, how they call, and what they ought to be doing when they are calling, instead of calling. It takes, exactly, one episode of following someone who is talking on a cell phone and driving in a peculiar manner to make you understand that most of the charm of distance is that you cannot be easily reached, should you choose not to be; whereupon, you call your spouse and pass along the insight. Behind you, of course, is another person who is preparing to call their spouse with much the same conversation in mind, and so on.

It is an awful lot like playing tag.

Which leads to another thing. The distance between things used to mean that there were a whole lot of places to play as a kid. We used to rampage around the undeveloped fields and hills up and behind our house. That we also had an Interstate highway up above our back yard is only incidental; we played beyond it, in front of it, and below it. And we once took great advantage of that absence of development by, well, developing it. In short, we constructed elaborate and carefully hidden forts.

There were about twelve neighbor kids involved initially, two to a fort. Once we had decided to convert the area to an assortment of city-states, the pairs wandered the area, looking for the perfect building site. “Perfect,” in that context, generally meant “elevated, ” as though we were each devising our own little Chateau Galliard. Not that the real one held particularly well, either. Anyway, we each dug several feet down into the soft clay, carefully shaped our redoubts, tunneled here and there, making “secret” entrances, then covered the things with two by fours and scrap plywood. Much effort was then given to camouflaging the entrance to our forts, and we would marvel at our own ingenuity. We spent days down there, underground, reading comic books by flashlight, sallying forth every so often to visit the other forts. And after about a week, bored out of our tiny, little minds, we found something else to do that probably involved breaking stuff.

Most of Idaho in those days was much like the area below my house, though. Everything was remarkably undeveloped, even in the cities. For instance, when I moved to Boise in 1976 to attend college, there was a Shakey’s Pizza out on State Street that apparently had been erected out on the crumbling and frayed edge of the world. I also recall that the point of going there was that this particular Shakey’s lacked a certain institutional concern about the legal drinking age. Or, more to the point, the owner did. Regardless, State Street out beyond that restaurant was largely undeveloped until you hit Eagle, which also was undeveloped. And Meridian at that time had a population that seemed to be composed primarily of cattle.

There was, therefore, little reason to drive from one small town to the next. Nothing was happening in Kuna that was not also happening in Star, mostly because nothing was happening in Star. And that was a part of the charm as well. As a result, people simply lived their lives, and did not spend a lot of time commuting, which, for many residents in rural Ada and Canyon Counties, was what they did while walking from their house to their barn.

My hometown, Pocatello, is changing as well. For a long time, I had a theory that the only new businesses in Pocatello were restaurants, which meant that people who worked in them would have to go out to eat periodically, thereby supporting other restaurants. This is no longer the case. And the high school I attended, which was formerly surrounded by, mostly, sagebrush, is now choked with housing of all sorts. “Windy Top” is a good deal less windy, what with all of the new windbreaks.

Ultimately, the most significant change in Idaho is that the distance between the municipalities is now filled with starter homes, strip malls, chain stores, and McMansions. This construction leads to increased amounts of traffic and generally results in frustrations that make the whole cell phone problem seem rather tame.

The point is not that change is a bad thing, but that it is continuous and happening as you read this. And you might like it now, or not. But there will be a point where you look back and miss what you no longer have. And if it happens, when it happens, don’t pick up your cell phone. We already know. We all know.

These things I do not like (hardly comprehensive)

2006-03-06T10:45:00.000-08:00

French wine
French bread
France
The French
Green tea
Wranglers
Code Red Mountain Dew
Tootsie Rolls
American League Baseball
Woody Allen movies
The Idaho Shakespeare Festival (Shakespeare, done without the hard parts)
Menudo
“Literary” novels (bite me, Cormac McCarthy)
Carob
Amazon.com
Blondes (with given and notable exceptions)
Liver
"Progressive" politics

These things I like (partial list)

2006-03-06T10:42:00.000-08:00

Aussie Shiraz wine.
Chocolate
Coffee (the stronger the better)
Dancing Dog Coffee Shop (Meridian, ID) – They have a drink they are pleased to call The Hair of the Dog, which is 3⁄4 brewed dark coffee and 3 shots of espresso. Oh my.
Clean Socks.
501 Levis
College Football
National League Baseball
Porterhouse steaks
Bushmill's Irish Whiskey
The Three Stooges
The Marx Brothers (excepting Zeppo and Gummo)
William Shakespeare and his Plays
Victor Hugo novels
Billy Wilder movies
Pasta
Bagels, cream cheese and lox
Red Bull
Barnes and Noble
girlfriday

Consequential Ex-Presidents

2006-03-05T23:43:00.000-08:00

It has become an article of faith for the more liberal among us that Jimmy Carter, while a disaster as a one-term president, is the greatest ex-president we have ever had. His cheerleaders laud his work with the Carter Center and Library, his various missions around the world in support of his vision of peace and democracy, as well as his efforts on behalf of Habitat for Humanity and other charities. Clearly, he has remained engaged with the world, and since many former Chief Magistrates have either retired or found ways to make acres of money, Carter must be taken seriously as an ex of consequence.

I cannot rank him any higher than 10th, however.

Based on my own evaluation of former presidents, the list runs as follows:

1. John Quincy Adams. A disastrous one term president (like Mr. Carter), Adams re-entered public life as a Congressman for Massachusetts, and spent the last 18 years of his life serving in the House of Representatives fighting to end slavery.
2. Herbert Hoover. Founded the Hoover Institution of War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University. Additionally, served Presidents Truman and Eisenhower with two Hoover Commissions on reorganization of the Executive Branch, and served Truman as an envoy to Europe after WWII seeking solutions to avert civil unrest and famine.
3. William Howard Taft. After serving one inconsequential and disappointing term as Theodore Roosevelt’s hand picked successor, he failed in re-election against Roosevelt (running as a third-party candidate) and Woodrow Wilson. Subsequently, Taft was nominated and confirmed as Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court in 1921 and served until his death in 1930.
4. Thomas Jefferson. After his generally successful two terms in office, Jefferson retired to Monticello and, among other things, founded the University of Virginia and served as Rector.
5. Theodore Roosevelt. After his two successful terms as president, he wrote, traveled, continued to be very engaged in politics and launched the most successful third party candidacy for president in US History, garnering more votes than President Taft while assuring the victory of Wilson.
6. James Madison. Served seventeen years as a trustee (Board of Visitors) and ten years as Rector of the University of Virginia after the death of Thomas Jefferson.
7. Ronald Reagan. While his immediate post presidency was devoted to a series of lectures and a gentle retirement, the onset of Alzheimer’s Disease led him to a stunningly consequential decision: to make his illness public. This led to increased acceptance of Alzheimer’s patients and to a flood of new funding for research. Ultimately, Reagan’s affliction will have a direct and lasting impact on the eventual cure for the disease.
8. Ulysses S Grant. I would base his post-presidential impact solely on the literary merit of his Memoirs, one of the greatest war commentaries ever written.
9. Richard M Nixon. His post presidency was devoted to writing a series of foreign policy books, lecturing extensively on the subject, and serving as an unofficial advisor to Presidents Bush (senior) and Clinton.
10. Jimmy Carter

Madbinton

2006-01-02T23:30:00.000-08:00

Madbinton is a derivative form of Badminton. A Game originally named by Mr. Aldous Albermarle of Baltimore, MD (and other sundry parts of America equally unappealing), apparently while Drunk and in a Fit of Pique, Madbinton evolved from Badminton, but has two Important Differences; it should be played in the Dark, Illuminated, to the extent it can be, by Porch Lights and Bic Lighters, and it must be Played while Inebriated. There is, however, an Alternative for Daytime Play, which involves Pre-Play Ingestion of Alcohol and Penalty Drinking. Daytime Rules mandate the Ingestion of at least Three Substantial Drinks Immediately Prior to Play. Inasmuch as Daytime Madbinton is not Subject to the Usual Dearth of Light and Vision, it is therefore Necessary and Proper that Penalties be Assessed for Inappropriate Play. These Penalties shall be Mandated by the Local Governing Body, and may include Items such as:

Whining and/or Sniveling about Anything – One Drink from Glass.
Errant Hit of Shuttlecock Onto Roof – One Drink from Glass.
Striking Baby In Head – One Full Glass.
And Other Such Penalties as may be Locally Devised.

It must be Noted at this Juncture that Players who Play Too Hard or Attempt to Win will be Subject to Immediate Disqualification and the Scornful Calumny of the Opposition. In All Things Madbinton, an Attitude of Nonchalant and Discreet Inebriation is to be Desired.

Appropriate Attire
The Use of Clothing is Mandatory, given the general levels of Physical Fitness or Lack Thereof in regards to the Players, as are Good Shoes of whatever type seems Most Comfortable. Hats are NOT recommended, and will lose the Player Style Points and any chance of Engaging in Sexual Congress subsequent to the Game.

Playing Madbinton
Players shall be uniformly equipped with a Racquet, a Sprightly Attitude, and a Glass filled with whatever form of Alcohol it is that they are Imbibing. At No Point may the Glass be Parked, and if there are Spills, the level of Liquor within the Glass shall be Restored by Additional Booze. At each Service Point, the Server is advised to yell "Service!" - whereupon all Players respond with a hearty echo of "Service!" and then all parties Drink. At this point, the Server smacks the Shuttlecock, all Hell breaks loose, and the Thing inevitably hits the Ground. Whereupon the Entire Point of the Endeavor, the Service, is repeated.

Recommendations
Margaritas and Spalding Racquets come Highly Recommended and are generally considered to be Professional Standard Equipment. Alternatives to the Recommended Standard Drink will be Entertained, so long as the Alcoholic Potency remains Equivalent.

Caution
Any similarities between Madbinton and Drinking Adaptations or other Assorted Gaucheries inflicted upon such games as Bowling, Softball or Competition Hand Grenade Tossing are Spurious and serve only to highlight the necessity for Less Sober Reflection and More Booze.

An Admonitory Note
The Playing of Madbinton, at least among the Most Dexterious Afficionadoes, has almost uniformly resulted in a Pronounced and Irritating Inability to remember the Occasion and Circumstances of previous Madbinton Games Played. This is Usual and Normal, and serves to Identify and Stigmatize any Players not Similarly Afflicted as making an Insufficient Commitment to the Game.

An Examination of Stoogery

2005-12-28T23:36:00.000-08:00

For the uninitiated, there is something about The Stooges that appeals to men in a visceral, anvil-dropping sense that has no corresponding gut level response in women. Which is fair, because men, for the most part, don’t understand Jane Austen novels. Or Harlequin Romances. Or why Brad Pitt is paid money to act. Or what a woman means when she says “you just don’t understand,” and you haven’t said anything yet.

Whatever. For Stooge aficionados, among whom I can proudly be numbered, the prevailing questions are not so much involved with whether The Stooges are funny or worth watching - they are - but, rather, which shorts are best, and which Third Stooge do you prefer? Is Curly your favorite Third, or does Shemp tickle your fancy? Perhaps, God help you, you prefer Curly Joe DiRita? Ick.

Well, for anyone who has questions about the formation of The Stooges, their days in vaudeville, or where Moe got his doofus hairdo, there is a book available that will probably occupy a place in your bathroom for the next six to twelve months, and not just because it will take you that long to read it. Billed as the “Official and Authorized” story of the Amalgamated Morons, "The Three Stooges: An Illustrated History" by Michael Fleming, takes a loving look at Stoogedom and those violent but lovable lads in the center of the mayhem. It also has the virtue of being in the catalogue at most public libraries. Frankly, I cannot imagine a Stooge devotee without this volume. Of course, Mel Gibson aside, I also cannot imagine a Stooge devotee with ready money.

Herein, you will delve into the formative Stooge years, get an idea from whence this idiocy sprang, and peruse a fairly comprehensive list of items that the lads employed to smash each other with, pipe wrenches and plumbing gear being the most popular. Hairstyle choices are discussed (see above), and you’ll find a bit about why dyed-in-the-wool Stoogeophiles hate Bozo the Clown (a clue: observe Larry Fine’s hairdo) and despise Abbott and Costello (watch Curly awhile, then compare Lou’s usual shtick). There is even a fair amount about how Columbia Studios made a mint off of them, and yet managed to keep them scared of losing their jobs and therefore underpaid.

All interesting stuff, but not nearly as important as the list of shorts in the back of the volume. For those who have seen the boys on TBS a few times, keep in mind that they made in excess of 150 short features. There are probably upwards of forty movies that I personally haven’t seen yet, which is nice to know. Unfortunately, most of those lack Curly.

Well. The list of features is comprehensive and loving. It details every short, describing the production history and giving the names of directors, writers, and supporting cast members, along with more esoteric details, such as when Curly’s first shuffle appeared or who first blocked Moe’s signature eye poke, and how.

Ultimately, however, the value of this book rests on how the Howards and Larry Fine are personalized. Moe was the lead idiot on-screen, and became the head Stooge off-screen as well. A straight actor prior to Stoogedom, he became the ex-officio business manager for the others, who simply could not be bothered. Larry Fine was a classically trained violinist and pratfall artist who enjoyed fine living, fast horses, and a full nightlife. Curly had been a mustachioed fashion-plate prior to joining the act, and he remained the Stooge most likely to be arrested for nightlife silliness. And Shemp, the Third Stooge prior to Curly (in vaudeville before the Columbia shorts) and following (after Curly’s massive stroke in 1947, which ended his career), was a hypochondriac, nevertheless considered by most observers to be the funniest of the Howards offstage.

The boys to one side (where they are probably breaking something), there is a quality to Stoogedom in general that is worth commenting on. After Columbia canceled the shorts in 1956 due to the rising popularity of television, the surviving Stooges (Curly and Shemp died in 1951 and 1954 respectively) found themselves cut adrift. Paradoxically, the medium that retired The Stooges earned them a whole new level of popularity when Columbia sold their shorts to the networks. Kids that had neither seen a Stooge nor cared to were suddenly running in circles on the floor and whooping. The boys (ok, the old men) made a small fortune in personal appearances, and revived the act for a time in cartoon form. The Three Stooges were back, and, like all good culture crashers, have not left since.

Indeed, Stoogery has survived the deaths of the Stooges, the Vietnam War, feminism, Bill and Monica, the millennium and political correctness. It is elemental in its simplicity, and translates amazingly well to other cultures. As you read this, there is probably some gentleman in Micronesia watching Curly machine-gunning someone by rattling his hat. This gentleman is laughing like a lunatic, wiping his eyes and drumming his heels on the floor, while his wife observes him pityingly, like a classroom project in abnormal psychology.

Which probably isn’t a bad idea. It remains one of the more interesting problems of male/female interpersonal relationships that men are generally unable to convince women that The Three Stooges are actually funny. I suppose that a series of double-blind studies to examine the question are called for, but I can state empirically that women do not find them amusing at all. In point of fact, I have discovered, precisely, two women who ever have laughed at a Stooge short. I am not, however, convinced that either was representative of women as a whole, as one found falling anvils absolutely hysterical and the other could be completely undone by the sound of a ripe fart. I get along great with both.

And the best part? Neither particularly likes Jane Austen.

Avoiding Social Vampires

2005-10-31T15:28:00.000-08:00

1. Be willing to spend time alone. It helps if you like it.

2. Be willing to say “no.” Practice. Practice again, and use the word a lot.

3. In given situations, carefully define who it is that has a particular problem. If it is not your problem, it is not your problem.

4. You are not obligated to provide what someone else needs unless you make that commitment.

5. Choose your friends with joy. Choose your projects with care.

6. If you choose someone as a project, commit to that. Do not begrudge the time spent trying to fix them. If, however, they refuse to be fixed, do not consider yourself to be bound to the process. Enough is more than enough.

7. It is legitimate to consider your needs first. It is mandatory to consider your needs at some point.

8. People who ask if you have a couple of minutes generally are not planning to give you anything but a headache or a load of their problems.

9. Never choose to help people simply because they are attractive. You will usually regret it. Worse, however, is choosing to help people because they look pathetic.

10. Guilt only works on you when you let it. Do not let people make you feel guilty unless you actually did something to feel guilty about. Then wallow in it, if you choose.

11. Disconnect your phone.

12. Spend time with people who want nothing from you.

13. Try to spend time with people who are at least as emotionally healthy as you are.

14. Never allow anyone to spend your time without your permission. You are not obligated to answer phones, answer questions or return mail, e or otherwise, unless it is a requirement of your job. Then, depending on how much you like your job, do as you see fit.

15. It is acceptable to screen calls using Caller ID or your voice mail.

16. If you carry a cell phone, you are always available for interruption. Turn it off and leave it in your glove compartment.

17. If someone talks to you more than twice about the same personal problem, they have decided not to change their circumstances and have elected, instead, to waste your time.

18. If someone wants your opinion about their extra-marital affair, they are looking for your sanction, not your analysis.

19. Shun whiners.

20. In the event you recognize your behavior on this list, do something about it before your friends do something about you.

Getting Properly Inebriated

2005-10-29T22:56:00.000-07:00

1. Convince yourself that it is necessary. If you cannot do that, at least make certain that you have a full commitment to the process. There is nothing sadder than a half-assed drunk.

2. Decide whether you wish to drink in a public house or get quietly snockered at home. Key considerations include transportation to the pub and back, as well as sufficient cash to get securely hammered. If your transportation is dicey or the cash flow is less than optimal, consider at home inebriation. The cost is considerably less, the time spent in travel is erased, and the number of possible witnesses against you is significantly diminished.

3. What do you intend to drink? In general, beers or ales are not good choices, if only because the amount of liquid necessary to achieve drunkenness is maximized. Consider vodka, 151 rum, or, best of all, Everclear as mixer options. If you can stand the heat, drink them straight for maximum drunkenness, minimum fuss, and very small amounts of actual liquid to vomit when, inevitably, you do.

4. With whom will you drink? Ideally, a man’s best partner for a drunken spree is an attractive female, but not if the intention is proper inebriation. If you drink with an attractive female, the part of the brain that really ought to be keeping track of your drink total is staring at her boobs and trying to figure out how to get her horizontal and naked. A better choice is your best male friend, who will be your wingman and make sure you do not drown in the john when, inevitably, you vomit. For a female, conversely, getting properly inebriated involves drinking with at least four other women, who will trade shots, giggle, and guard each other from men who will attempt to get them horizontal and naked. In the case of gay drinkers, strike and reverse.

5. Why are you doing this to yourself? If the answer is anything other than “Why the hell not?” you have clearly been spending too much time sober.

6. Once you have decided where, when, why and how, you need to spend some time considering style points. Obviously, if you are drinking at home, you are a sad and pathetic wanker who has little money, fewer prospects, and no chance whatsoever of bedding an attractive lovely unless you live with her already…which, considering the foregoing, is about as likely as the reanimation of Spam using household current and Borax. At home drinkers receive NO style points. If you wish to maximize style points, however, you must keep in mind that some risk is clearly going to be involved. Hence, the pub crawl.

7. Performing a satisfactory pub crawl requires a strong stomach, a good sense of humor, and no judgment whatsoever. Pick one end of downtown and work your way to the other end, carefully stopping at each bar and downing a drink. Shots work best. By the 6th or 7th bar, things will get fuzzy, particularly if you are moving quickly. By the 10th or 12th bar, things should be getting blurry. You are doing well; please continue. By the 14th or 16th drink, if you can still walk you should continue doing so; if not, you crawl. By the 18th drink, 95% of participants either will be randomly crawling, inertly sprawling, or feebly moving in a growing pool of vomit.
Style points will be awarded for proper inebriation given that there are witnesses and there is a public spectacle of some variety. Improper inebriation, however, will cause you to lose almost as many friends as proper inebriation.

8. Prolonged gastric evacuation is only indicated and acceptable when the balance in bodily fluids too nearly approaches 1:1 water and alcohol. Obviously, the body cannot survive when it contains too much alcohol; equally obvious is the fact that one does not want to survive if the lack of alcohol is too profound. Moderation in all things is stupid. Upchuck the surplusage, and then sleep the sleep of the damned.

9. Repeat.