Most folks I know seem remarkably keen at what 2006 has to offer. Myself? Well, I’m feeling strangely ambivalent about 2006. There’s a little shakiness in the “what do I want to accomplish this year” department, I suppose. Most years I’ve grittily resolved to find a better job, but I’m pretty happy with the job I have now.
Perhaps it’s the new year’s resolution I’ve made. (Stop pelting me with fetid vegetable matter, I’m not normally prone to such pointless cliche). But this resolution will be a challenging one. I present to you… Jeb: Tastes Like Sober.
That’s right, I’m putting the sauce away for… well, as long as I can muster up, really. I’ve made somewhat laughable attempts at this before, but this time I’m giving it serious effort. If I really must guzzle booze, then I’ll stick to a few li… li… lightbeers (Jesus, it’s like someone finally invented a word more offensive than “cunt”).
What’s brought all this on? Well, I’ve just been noticing my alcohol consumption increase markedly over the last two years. It’s near impossible for me to just have one beer, I have to drink an entire 700ml bottle of bourbon in one night instead. Memory blackouts are regrettably no longer fashionable, and will surely result in me somehow ending up naked on the internet (most possibly on my own site in a drunken blog entry) if I don’t curtail all the boozing.
So perhaps this impending branding of being the sadarse who orders Diet Coke when everyone else has a beer is what’s causing me to view 2006 with a little disdain. Truth be told, I don’t plan on this dry spell lasting any longer than three to six months, but I’d like to think it’ll help teach me to drink a little more in moderation. (I honestly cannot believe my fingers are typing these words).
So, to summarise my final alcohol-related musings for the year… I was somewhat ashamedly fond of those Jim Beam & Vanilla Cola ready-to-drink cans which were around a year or two ago. They mustn’t have been able to flog too many at all, as they were yanked off the shelves pretty quickly. But goddamn me if that wasn’t a fine (and marginally more manly lolly-water than your average Bacardi Breezer) piece of piss. Those cans had the PERFECT level of vanilla that you could never quite match simply by using mixing Vanilla Coke with regular Beam.
So, I was somewhat saddened (yet simultaneously re-masculated) when these cans disappeared off the shelves. But, during my Christmas romp to Melbourne, what did I discover in a city Liquorland outlet? VANILLA BEAM. I had to buy eighteen of the fuckers to celebrate. Then, shortly afterwards, began drafting new year’s resolutions.
Still, once my Dry Spell™ is over, goddamn if I won’t be hunting those babies down in Sydney. Liquorland outlets must still be able to get their mitts on them somehow… it’s just that there aren’t really any Liquorland stores near me. I think there’s one in the city, so I’ll give it a shot. Or I’ll cry.
The only other Melbourne and alcohol-related note I wished to make, is the potential introduction of a horrendous scam to your fair state. I’m a firm believer that the staple beer glass size of New South Wales, the humble schooner, is far superior to Victoria’s pot – who needs all that faffing around with weary back-and-forth trips to the bar, or jugs of beer that go warm too quickly?
As many Sydneysiders will know, the dreaded schmiddie (somewhere between a full-size schooner and its smaller cousin, the middy) has been creeping into trend-ay bars over the last few years. In far too many Sydney pubs of late, you’ll order a schooner and end up with a pissy schmiddie instead.
A bar at Crown Casino managed to escalate this farce to a new level when I visited them in Melbourne last week. After asking for a beer, I was offered a schooner. This struck me as quite odd – schooners aren’t generally served as a standard beer size in Melbourne – so I accepted. And THEN I was presented with a schmiddie – and charged five freakin’ bucks! Most Melbourne folk wouldn’t be able to ascertain the difference, nor be familiar with the cost. Watch out for this nasty trick spreading like a virus throughout your local bars, Melbournites.
But – to encourage my lack of booze in the coming weeks, I’m planning to begin Project Get Fucking Huge tomorrow. I lost 25kg last year, so if I managed to put down the Doritos and stop being a fatarse, surely I can Get Fucking Huge. Minor problem is that my whimpering-in-pain threshold is similar to that of Dave Mustaine coming into contact with anyone remotely connected to Metallica, but I’m sure I’ll overcome this with time.
Just last hour I found out that Threshold got cancelled – bummer. That was one slightly crap show I was enjoying downloading. I suspect I loved it simply because the army dude in that show looked a bit like Angel, but had a flooring lack of personality. It was amazing to see him react so blandly and suck the life out of crazy action scenes, like some sort of X-factor vortex; yet still remain so blandly attractive in a generic porn actor way.