After numerous pints of the good stuff, and ending on a shot of tequila, my night of birthday debauchery has left me with a stinker of a hangover… I can’t type for long, I lose focus.

I just went involuntarily cross-eyed and almost covered my screen in vomitous.

Have you ever wanted to save a few pennies and sneak your own ale into a club, concert or simply because you’re a fucking sneaky alcoholic? Fret no more, my beer guzzling swines… here to save you is The Beerbelly Deluxe Kit . The site touts it’s crafty creation as “a removable spare tire that serves a stealth beverage”. What genius.

An article on this beer bladder over at Gizmodo comments:

I can’t tell if this is too stupid for words or stupendously ingenious. Guess you’ll have to make your own call. It’s called the Beerbelly and it’s actually a fake gut that you can fill up with beer (or your favorite alcoholic beverage) and hide under your clothes. Made up of a sling and a polyurethane “bladder” with a dispensing tube, the thing was created to let you slip booze into places where such substances may not be allowed.

Well the blokes are sorted… what about the ladies being able to sneak in a big bag of Cosmopolitan? Fake boobs?

Beginning this week, pubs in Britain won’t have to order drinkers out the door at the stroke of 11:00 every night.

The government argues it’s the best way to stop a growing wave of violent behavior that erupts right after closing, reports CBS News correspondent Mark Phillips.

The British are about to embark on an exercise in social engineering based on what many think is an odd premise – that excessive drinking can be controlled by making it easier to drink.

That’s what an article at cbsnews.com is saying - how will the Brits take this news? After moving to the States, I feel that folks are less likely to race to get wasted as they know the bars here don’t close until around 4am… leisurely drinking, go home when you’re tired… simple.

I have to say though, those English thug bastards probably won’t change their behavior - they’ll just kick the crap out of you at 3am instead.

Who better to invent the very latest technology geared towards beer, but the Germans. Just when you thought you’d be living a life full of trips to the bar when your glass is empty, think again. Along comes a new contraption that senses the weight of your glass, and determining whether a refill is needed - automatically notifies the bartender! At last, I can keep my arse firmly planted and not have to worry about those long arduous walks to the bar (phew!).

(CNN) — Two German students have created a device that will stop beer lovers having to get out of their seats for a refill.The “smart” beer mat, created by Matthias Hahnen and Robert Doerr from Saarland University in Saarbruecken, southwest Germany, can sense when a glass is nearly empty, sending an alert to a central computer behind the bar so waiters know there are thirsty customers.

Thank you guys, a great way for the beer drinking populous to add to their already existing colossal waists sizes, foregoing the necessity to use their legs ever again.

Now, if we can only come up with a way to not have to walk to the bathroom…

ever had a cold and your taste buds go to shit? that’s me right now. I’m trying to get through a bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale (a personal favorite) and it tastes like crap. Actually, I can’t bloody taste it at all. I think the only thing keeping me sipping the dark brown liquid is my memory of what it does taste like.

Sad existence when my Saturday drinking is subject to prior taste experiences. Even my cigarettes taste of fresh air… mixed with phlegm.

Ugh.

to say that I have never had a drop of booze touch my lips would be like, well, telling you that I have pinched the arse of the queen of england - complete bullshit. having said that however, I would like to embellish this post with my humble opinions on the matter of drinking… heavily.

there was a time when I used to serve in the Royal Air Force (worthy of its own post, be patient) and there were pretty much only two things to do “after hours”… go to the gym and work on the abs and gluts, or by using the strongest elbow, perch oneself at the very heavily subsidized, Air Force bar. thankfully, for the most part, I chose the former over the latter. where I am going with this, is thus - I watched as many of my compadres succumbed to the “amber nectar” (go sue me, ‘Fosters’) after a hard graft at the office - a way to reconcile oneself, profoundly reinforcing a place in this world - without actually reconciling. I knew booze, first hand to a “manageable” extent, and from watching my highly-polished belt-buckled barrack-mates, drinking themselves into a stupor known as, in my English retort, as fucking wankered. but who am I, you ask, to berate such a close knit social circle as my military kin. I agree. ‘each to his own’, was a phrase I soon became accustomed to… so began my experience with the ether known as alcohol.

you see, I was never much of a drinker prior to the military, not at all. the odd can of ’special brew’ with a group of very close friends, became the illicit drug that I wanted so much to steer clear of.

[tangent]

I thank my dear mother, whom I miss and love with the very fabric of my being, for keeping those apron strings taught, when I was a wee young chap.

[back on track]

as it seemed, I entered life as a semi-sensible young man with one mission - do well, be happy and make something of yourself - the three commandments I would learn would stand me in good stead. a staple, if you will. so where was I… ah yes, military…

[fast forward]

so I move to New York City with a vigor that is only comparable to Alexander The Great smacking the bottom of Asia - much to their disdain. I soon realize that my partner in life very much enjoyed the escapism of getting wasted. an almost quasi-acceptable state of mind here in the big fat apple that would envelope one in a joy far from facing one’s reality.

and so it began…

my first 3 years [here] were (and are still) very hazy, to say the least. for example, if someone said to me tomorrow, “so, what did you get up to during your primary tenure in the city?”, I would have to reply with an apparent (I’m sure) reluctance, “eh, you know, this and that”. truth be told, I don’t remember much significant detail about my first 3 years here, which makes me sad. from the years of 29 to 32, I find myself mentally and emotionally walking in a mist, and conversing my whereabouts in cryptic diction, to my own disbelief. sad. there was a time when the constant drinking was becoming such a pastime that I couldn’t differentiate normal living with being completely fucking drunk. sad. many weeks, and indeed months blended into one another, forming a kind of ‘play doh’ history of my life - a softly molded reality that I could feel between my fingers, yet I had no clue of the shapes that would result in my feigned efforts.

[fast forward]

and here I am, writing this blog, broken hearted by admitting my recent, and indeed reticent, life, thus far in New York. I hope to become a ‘better person’ - and by that I mean, becoming a person that I once was. a person that enjoyed meeting others, knowing others, helping others, focusing a life bettering myself - gym, cycling, museums, parks, movie theaters etcetera.

life. i love you. I don’t need a clouded existence. beer, you’re for weekends and birthdays.