my boyfriend keeps moaning at me to stop drinking cos i am a nightmare drunk. this is true but i don't think i am going to stop.
― katie, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― suzy, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Ally, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Tom, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― RickyT, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― alix, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
I suppose my life does revolve around alcohol, in that alcohol is everpresent in my non-work life... but I wouldn't say my life was ruled by alcohol.
I love pubs. I have absolutely no problem with going to the pub on my own (not any pub mind, it has to be one I like) and just sitting watching the world go by, reading the paper, whatever. Whether I could do without it... well, I could probably *exist* if I could never hear another record ever again, or walk down by the Thames, but I don't really fancy trying.
So then:
Destroy: Wetherspoons, Sam Smiths ('cept maybe the Angel), "gastropubs", Hoxton Bar & Kitchen...
Search: Heart & Hand in Brighton, Red Lion on Mundy Street, the George & Vulture, and the Betsey, natch.
RIP: The Green Tree in Edinburgh...
― Andrew Williams, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
egads! Andrew, one of these destroys is *very* controversial!
― chris, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
I'm feeling crappily hungover at the moment, and I'm certainly wishing my life revolved a lot less around bouze. Maybe when I grow up.
― Mark C, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Jonnie, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
My social life revolves around music. Because so much of music happens in pubs, bars and places where booze is consumed, I think they become linked. But I think it's far more about the music rather than the booze.
How much my life depends on alcomahol depends on the situation, really. But then I always have these experiments to see if I *can* get through uncomfortable situations sober (gigging is always my nightmare situation- combination of pressure and social situation). And I usually can do it, I just don't enjoy it as much. I've gone years without drinking a drop, I can stop when I want to, but usually start again when I want to, too, simply because life is less interesting without alcohol.
Socialising with strangers and sex are the two things I actually have the most trouble doing sober. I can talk to friends sober, in fact, that's a good judge of how close a friend someone is- how well I get on with them when sober. But talking to people I've just met, or people I don't know very well? Hate doing that sober.
And sex? I don't know why I have to be drunk or at least tipsy to have good sex. I think it's something to do with overcoming self loathing in order to feel *sexy* in the first place. Or someone of course could make the obvious crack that I've just been having sex with the wrong people?
Does this mean you're going back on the sauce after your year of sobriety is up, Chris? I swear to god, you and Jane have switched personalities. She used to be a teatotaller and now quaffs absinthe cocktails, and you used to be a beermonster and you've gone cold turkey. Very strange world we are living in.
― kate, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Sarah, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Most social events for me do revolve around pub, either as place to gossip and chat, or place to go and see THE ROCK MUSIC, hurrah! I find the idea of being in a pub and not drinking rather horrific. I can do without but I prefer not to. Num num. Nothing beats the wuvvly contented feeling from CURRY AND BEER.
― Nick, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
on the subject of which, any laaaaah-ndoners got good pub quiz recommendations? obv a good dollop of music triv, but gen triv OK too. is the legendary rock-hard all-music one in that pub on chalk farm road still going?
― Alan Trewartha, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Cheshire Cheese, Fleet Street - lovely boozer, like stepping back in time and drinking in caves, I will most likely be there very soon.
The Champion, behind Oxford street - nice pub which can act as a great revitaliser after shopping on Oxford street
Princess Louise, Holborn - victorian gin palace, amazing toilets, I think this is a smiths pub, can't remember too clearly though
― Mark, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Me and another mate used to run a pop quiz in Brighton called Pretty Vacant. It was.... legendary. It also featured a regular before-he- was-famous appearance from Andrew out of Big Brother 1. Happy days...
― Dr. C, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
The beer is absolutely fine. And the pleasure you get when actual change is handed back to you when you buy a round easily makes up for the mediocre quality of the product.
Have you tried the Sam Smiths beer-in-a-bottle? Is it much better than the draft?
if you want to step away from beer then it's gotta be a bloody Mary, it's a meal in a glass.
― toraneko, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Dan Perry, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Such a ILNaNoWriMo site would be fine & dandy - someone get to work on this. My hubris demands that I share my ratty prose with the world.
― David Raposa, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Graham, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― james, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Samantha, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
One time we got drunk on our lunch break. Three people fell asleep at their desks (ONE FELL ON THE FLOOR!), everyone else was very loud. At the restaurant one of the guys broke a glass and we all ran out. The next day we had an emergency staff meeting.
― di, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Gale Deslongchamps, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Now that I live in a better bar town,.. well, yeah, alcohol is found at many a cornerstone in my life these days.. heh heh... ugh.
― Brian MacDonald, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Didn't drink much, if at all, from 14-19. Resumed at a party in 1995 or so, and drank now and again from then until May 1998 at age 21, at my college's outdoor music festival a couple weeks before I graduated, when I got absolutely plastered, far beyond anything I'd ever done before, and spent five hours alternately vomiting and unconscious in a women's public toilet (no one knew where I was, so no one came to help me) until I staggered back to my dorm room at five or six in the morning.
(About five hours later, my father almost died in a fall. Not a good day.)
Since then, I've had but little to drink -- getting that ill took away most of the fun. I don't like the way alcohol makes me feel anymore, either -- it used to have a euphoriac effect on me, but now it just makes me feel queasy, jumpy and vaguely lightheaded. So I have a glass of wine or Chartreuse or a beer every few months or so, and that's basically it. I suppose I miss the glow -- it was especially nice to have 2-3 glasses of wine at a good concert -- but really, once you're legal, it's not that much fun anymore.
― Phil, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Menelaus Darcy, Thursday, 1 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
xpost I will be the first to admit that I was very very bad about driving when I shouldn't up until the time I almost got a DUI, and that even that incident didn't....completely solve the problem, so I solved it by making it impossible to drive home by Ubering to the venue if there's a remote chance of me having a lot to drink. if you can't trust yourself, take it out of the equation. but it's a hard lesson to learn.
did that last night, there was a time when I would have said "it's only 1 mile, what's potentially killing myself and other people"
― waiting for a czar to fall (Neanderthal), Friday, 10 February 2023 19:00 (one year ago) link
It makes no sense, but then again, 19 year old males are not known for making sensible decisions.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Friday, 10 February 2023 19:02 (one year ago) link
If there's the slightest chance I'll drink more than two cocktails at night I Lyft/Uber home.
― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 10 February 2023 19:02 (one year ago) link
Yeah, I've found that if I just don't leave home with a vehicle, I won't be driving at all that night.. I'll either walk, take a bus, or get a ride home
(but I don't have a car, only honda motorbikes)
― Andy the Grasshopper, Friday, 10 February 2023 19:03 (one year ago) link
xpost some of the times I made bad decisions, I had a phone and could have Ubered home and didn't. intoxicated brain immediately says "ehh I can drive and no I don't want to pick up my car tomorrow" way too easily.
glad your son is ok and sorry that you had probably the scare of a lifetime.
― waiting for a czar to fall (Neanderthal), Friday, 10 February 2023 19:04 (one year ago) link
It's not the first scare he's given me, and probably not the worst, but I am glad he's OK--more or less. He does have a broken left humerus.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Friday, 10 February 2023 19:05 (one year ago) link
when I was 17 a very dear friend of mine died when the drunk driver crashed the car into the side of a house, she was in the passenger seat and burned to death - the driver managed to get out and survived after he had a leg amputated. Also my best friend was killed by a drink driver when I was 8. That's one reason why I never got a driving license - I find it extremely easy to imagine what can go wrong.
― calzino, Friday, 10 February 2023 19:13 (one year ago) link
Jesus Christ, calzino, that's horrible. I can see how you'd be scared off driving.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Friday, 10 February 2023 19:18 (one year ago) link
For all mirth made about self-driving cars.. once they perfect the technology, I think it'll be very good for society as a whole
― Andy the Grasshopper, Friday, 10 February 2023 19:19 (one year ago) link
We can ride around as fucked up as we please.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Friday, 10 February 2023 19:24 (one year ago) link
Problem is Elon's cars don't seem to always be sober
― waiting for a czar to fall (Neanderthal), Friday, 10 February 2023 19:26 (one year ago) link
I like the idea of slow cars that are restricted to 15mph, reckon I could handle one of them.
― calzino, Friday, 10 February 2023 19:26 (one year ago) link
I think Avalon on Catalina Island is golf-cart only
― Andy the Grasshopper, Friday, 10 February 2023 19:28 (one year ago) link
Peachtree City, south of Atlanta, is mostly if not exclusively golf carts. It's like a preserve for old white people.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Friday, 10 February 2023 19:29 (one year ago) link
old drunk white people
― Andy the Grasshopper, Friday, 10 February 2023 19:33 (one year ago) link
I once took my partner's mobility scooter for a very fun test drive, that was basically a mini golf cart - but one that you you are permitted to ride on the pavements. There was plenty of beer storage space on the back as well!
― calzino, Friday, 10 February 2023 19:40 (one year ago) link
It's like a preserve for old white people.
Cryogenics iirc
― waiting for a czar to fall (Neanderthal), Friday, 10 February 2023 19:47 (one year ago) link
our city just got those Bird scooters and on summer nights you can see plenty of clearly drunk people riding them all over the downtown. I saw one flip over a parked car but he seemed okay. only a matter of time before someone gets severely injured on one of those things. you're probably safer in your car.
― frogbs, Friday, 10 February 2023 19:51 (one year ago) link
I am a frequent pedestrian and bike commuter. My neighborhood is rife with app-rented scooters and bikes. Come Sunday morning they litter the sidewalks like dying cicadas.
With all respect to frogbs I don't think it's feasible (or even necessary) to apply the same sobriety standards to rent-a-scooters as cars.
Sorry if this sounds ghoulish and cynical but: if someone is driving drunk I would rather they be doing so on a 40-pound motorized skateboard than a two-ton Death Machine. If they get injured it will be their own damn fault; if they get involved in a crash with a car or a telephone pole or a wall or whatever it will most likely be them who gets injured and/or dead.
In my ideal world, of course every tipsy person would just poke the Lyft / Uber icon or find a taxi.
Given that there's still a hard core of people who just can't stop making terrible decisions, I am okay with having their terrible decisions mostly affect themselves (and as few other people as possible).
― Auf Der Martini (Ye Mad Puffin), Friday, 10 February 2023 20:39 (one year ago) link
admittedly it's kinda funny to see people wipe out in these things while drunk, provided they just get up and walk away. its like when a cat totally biffs a long jump and just struts away like nothing happened
― frogbs, Friday, 10 February 2023 20:44 (one year ago) link
all these non-drivers need to stop rolling the dice putting their lives in my hands lol
― not too strange just bad audio (brimstead), Friday, 10 February 2023 22:30 (one year ago) link
lol that sounds like I drive drunk or something, I just meant people on non-motorized vehicles doing dumb shit in cities
― not too strange just bad audio (brimstead), Friday, 10 February 2023 22:31 (one year ago) link
Getting a bit off topic, but the most terrifying vehicles in NYC are the delivery guys on e-bikes. They are silent, they move fast, they tend to ride next to the sidewalk or between rows of cars where they are harder to see, and they tend not to obey traffic signals.
― o. nate, Friday, 10 February 2023 22:35 (one year ago) link
― not too strange just bad audio (brimstead), Friday, February 10, 2023 2:31 PM (nine minutes ago)
why do you drive a car in the city
― G. D’Arcy Cheesewright (silby), Friday, 10 February 2023 22:42 (one year ago) link
Day drinking>night drinking
― calstars, Friday, 10 February 2023 23:16 (one year ago) link
Heellll no
― waiting for a czar to fall (Neanderthal), Friday, 10 February 2023 23:28 (one year ago) link
day drinking leads to night drinking, in my experience
― Andy the Grasshopper, Friday, 10 February 2023 23:32 (one year ago) link
Yeah, clearly not.xp
― The field divisions are fastened with felicitations. (Deflatormouse), Friday, 10 February 2023 23:33 (one year ago) link
idk, if anything day drinking leads to passing out by 5pm.
― G. D’Arcy Cheesewright (silby)
you know, i bite my tongue not to say this every single time someone complains about driving in the city, or just mentions driving in the city in whatever context. i gotta learn to be more confrontational.
― The field divisions are fastened with felicitations. (Deflatormouse), Friday, 10 February 2023 23:35 (one year ago) link
Xpost It fucks my entire day plus the evening is my reward for being productive during the day
― waiting for a czar to fall (Neanderthal), Friday, 10 February 2023 23:36 (one year ago) link
I'd love not to drive in the city, believe me, if my city's idea of public transportation wasn't an awful bus system that often shows up to stops hours late, drives by them outright or doesn't show up at all, or are full with no room to board when they show up...
Or a rail system which doesn't run on weekends and has only a small number of boarding stations
Or take Ubers and Lyfts, which is just outsourcing driving in the city.
While an occasional drive in a quiet road can be nice, can't tell you how many times I went out for a drive to clear my head and what happened in the drive resulted in me getting stressed out more.
Excited about the expansion to Bright line long distance rail, but I would dream about selling my car (which I own) if I could do it. I like jamming tunes but drivers here are sociopaths.
― waiting for a czar to fall (Neanderthal), Friday, 10 February 2023 23:45 (one year ago) link
The thing that always makes me happy about my visits to NYC are just walking and subwaying everywhere.
― waiting for a czar to fall (Neanderthal), Friday, 10 February 2023 23:46 (one year ago) link
Heh, well, it's easy for me to say cause I don't know how to drive. I walked everywhere even when I lived in the burbs.
There's nothing like carrying 40lbs of groceries 3 miles back to your house on a sweltering day in August.
I get the transit fatigue, believe me. Trying to get home in the middle of the night on the barely functioning subway system, I mean, I was through with going out before I even turned 21.
― The field divisions are fastened with felicitations. (Deflatormouse), Friday, 10 February 2023 23:52 (one year ago) link
I tried our local bus once out of necessity when my car was towed, how bad could it be, $2 all u can ride. It took me two hours to arrive at the tow place, which was five miles away, due to a) the inane routes leading to 70 transfers and b) one of the buses blew the stop and I had to wait for the next.
Wound up having to lead a conference call on the bus that day cos I got back so late. My project manager asked me where the Hell I was due to the noise lol
― waiting for a czar to fall (Neanderthal), Friday, 10 February 2023 23:54 (one year ago) link
lol that sounds like I drive drunk or something, I just meant people on non-motorized vehicles doing dumb shit in cities― not too strange just bad audio (brimstead), Friday, February 10, 2023 2:31 PM (nine minutes ago)why do you drive a car in the city
― not too strange just bad audio (brimstead), Friday, 10 February 2023 23:58 (one year ago) link
people tend to do things like drive cars and drink alcohol because it’s makes them feel comfortable but I don’t know, we can’t be having that
― not too strange just bad audio (brimstead), Saturday, 11 February 2023 00:03 (one year ago) link
Man I hate my life. Lol.
I have a buddy who's a notoriously prolific drunk driver (and got caught once).. but he recently started dating a woman who has zero tolerance for it, and lo & behold - now he's walking everywhere (which is mostly what I do)
― Andy the Grasshopper, Saturday, 11 February 2023 00:07 (one year ago) link
Pretty sure I'm going to die at the hands of a motorist while walking down the side of a road that's unsuitable for pedestrians, I do that shit all the time and no matter how cautious I am, it's dicey.
lol at the conference call on a bus.
― The field divisions are fastened with felicitations. (Deflatormouse), Saturday, 11 February 2023 00:12 (one year ago) link
I have always felt that if I get hit by a car and survive I get a big payday and if I get hit by a car and die then I won’t be around to care meanwhile the driver will have to live with themself so I really come off better
― G. D’Arcy Cheesewright (silby), Saturday, 11 February 2023 00:14 (one year ago) link
very fatalistic lol
― Andy the Grasshopper, Saturday, 11 February 2023 00:18 (one year ago) link
you could also get hit by an uninsured hit & run driver and get nothing but lifelong paralysis
― Andy the Grasshopper, Saturday, 11 February 2023 00:19 (one year ago) link
I'm honestly counting on early death by vehicular manslaughter, I have no idea how I'm going to provide for myself in my old age otherwise.
Neando I think you should do all your conference calls from increasingly outlandish locations going forward just to mess with the project manager.
― The field divisions are fastened with felicitations. (Deflatormouse), Saturday, 11 February 2023 00:22 (one year ago) link
'Are you at.. are you at a bullfight??'
― Andy the Grasshopper, Saturday, 11 February 2023 00:24 (one year ago) link
I was walking back to my car once after seeing Slayer at the Jaguars stadium and I was kinda in the road cos there was no actual sidewalk and one of the cops yelled at me "are u nuts being in the street, just about everyone driving is drunker than hell" and I yelled back "then I'm no safer on the sidewalk either" and kept going
Died and hour later, RIP me
― waiting for a czar to fall (Neanderthal), Saturday, 11 February 2023 00:33 (one year ago) link
angel of death!
― Andy the Grasshopper, Saturday, 11 February 2023 00:37 (one year ago) link
ME (getting ready for dinner out this weekend with friends): "I'm going to try not to drink a cocktail before dinner."WIFE (laughing): "I'm going to try TO drink a cocktail before dinner."
― il lavoro mi rovina la giornata (PBKR), Tuesday, 6 June 2023 20:16 (ten months ago) link