I told you: details and photos were coming. Here there are. in even more excruciating detail than you could have imagined.

As noted earlier, the component I started with is the one that I thought could wait until last: the keg tub. (it's how things go) My plan was to go with two plastic tubs, and initially leaned toward using either Huskee(tm) or Rubbermaid Brute(tm) food-grade containers, getting two nesting sizes, and filling in the gap between with expanding foam. Looking at the dimensions of one of the empty kegs I have lying around the apartment (um. well, I'm that kind of guy) the sizes I would need were a 32 gallon and a 44 gallon tub.

These are a bit more expensive than I might have liked. And they're heavy. And they're not stocked at Home Depot, just at the restaurant supply place. (actually, a heavier gauge tub would have been better than what I ended up with; more on that later) So for these reasons, but mostly the expense, I went with regular plastic trash cans. Selection was sort of limited, so I had to get something smaller (20 gal. and 33 gal. sizes) but I thought that would be OK too. The two cans together cost $24 bucks, which is about $10 less than what I would have spent on the smaller of the two Brute containers. No one at Home Depot could find a lid for the larger can, but I figured I wouldn't need one, and picked up this set anyway.

The foam I picked up was something called Great Stuff, which is designed to fill gaps around window framing and crap like that. I bought a couple of cans, thinking I'd see how things went and then get more as needed; after all, they're only $5 each.



I didn't know if the foam would stick to the plastic can (it didn't) so when I did the first application I put a garbage bag on the outside of the inner bin. I also didn't know how much it might foam up, or what kind of pressure it might exert (it didn't do either, really) so I weighted the inner bin as well, to keep it in place and to hopefully encourage the foam up the sides.



In the end, it was all a big bust.



It sort of filled the bottom, maybe 6 inches up, and that's after using 4 cans. If I had a month, and worked a just a couple inches at a time, I could likely fill a gap between bins with this type of foam. (I'm not sure how much this would cost)

Another problem I ran into is that a 20 gallon trash can is too small. When I did finally get a keg in this rig, it sort of entirely filled the inside of the inner bin. I suppose I could have scrapped it-- but I had decided to just mount the draft arm on the trash can lid. (a procedure described below) Why? Well, I was running out of time, and I needed a portable set-up, since I was planning on taking this whole mess camping with me. So I had to save the one lid I had, which was for the wrong bin.

let's count my mistakes now, shall we? 1. wrong size tubs - 2. only one lid, for the way-too-small 20 gal. tub - 3. foam that didn't foam - 4. no time to go out and fix it, because mail-order parts delayed the build for a week - & 5. the cheap plastic bin could barely handle the weight of the keg plus ice.

If I had gone out and picked up the Brutes (a total of $79, not including whatever I would need for insulation) I would have had the sizes I needed, in an appropriate gauge, with a couple of lids. The foam wouldn't have worked out in either case, but I might not have tried it the same way with different equipment. I guess it's a wash. I'm out $44 bucks, but I still have one trash can that I guess I can use for something else.

It's a kludge, but I did come up with something that worked. I just chopped the inner trash can in two, so the top half would fit like a collar on top of the keg. More or less. I said the hell with insulation, and just dumped ice around the keg, using the larger trash can a lot like a regular keg tub. Which I already have.

Enough with the failures, let's take a look at what worked:



I've done draft set-ups before, so I did have a few parts on hand: A keg coupler (on the right) which fits the connection on top of the keg; gas in, beer out, and enough valves and what not inside to make sure everything flows in the right direction. There are different types of keg couplers depending on which brand of beer you want to get; the one pictured is for Guinness and Harp. (I've had it for years, and have run Guinness on plain CO2 before. no, it's not really the same) The wrench is a specialty tool, for changing out beer faucets, and above that is a "temporary" tap handle. (The faucets always ship without them. Likely because bars use the branded tap handles they get from distributors. I like the look of my chrome and black "temp" though, so I may not bother with finding an official Guinness tap handle) Since I already had these parts, I saved $60 or $70 bucks, for those of you keeping track at home.

Additional parts were ordered from Superior Restaurant Supply. They have an outlet store here in Atlanta, but of course, none of the parts I wanted were in stock, so I had to order them from Minnesota. Which I did over the internet-- www.superprod.com --just as soon as I had the $250 bucks or so to cover this:

- chrome Draft Arm, single faucet, 2 1/2 inch diameter: $60. This is the upright bit that stands on the counter and holds the faucet. For $60, you also get six feet of 3/16" tubing and a standard beer faucet.
- Stainless Steel Stout Faucet: $90. Like I've noted before, this is not standard, so I had to buy one. It screws into the same socket on the draft arm as a regular faucet-- no worries, no fuss.
- A double-gauge nitrogen regulator: $46. One gauge shows pressure in the air bottle, the other shows pressure leaving the regulator. I already have a CO2 version, but the nitrogen uses a different threading where it connects to the tank. (I could have gotten an adapter to use my old regulator on the new tank, but I thought at some point I might want to run both CO2 and Beer Gas at the same time)
- and a plastic drip tray: $18.60. Which I didn't use, but may come in handy later. (you never know)
and on top of that I had to pay roughly $30 in shipping & handling. (which I would have saved if they just stocked this stuff here in town, damn it.) (but I digress)

These parts go together something like this: Using the beer wrench, first I removed the faucet from the draft arm, and put on my shiny new stout faucet



I drilled a hole in the center of my trash can lid (big enough to let the beer line through) and then mounted the draft arm over this hole using small machine screws (not provided, but I had something in my tool box)



the underside of the lid will look something like this, with the beer line from the faucet connected to the keg coupler.



The draft arm mounted and upright, with the connections made and placed on top of my poor-MacGuyver rig, looks a bit like photo 10.



This was last Thursday around lunchtime. UPS had delivered my beer equipment just in time, so I had a chance to throw everything together about an hour before I had scheduled to pick up the keg. Which I then proceeded to do. (who's keeping track of money so far? keg o' the black: $147 plus a $40 deposit.) I got my keg from Mac's Beer and Wine in Midtown; it may be a few bucks cheaper somewhere else but I didn't even bother to price it. I have a good working relationship with Mac. On the way back, I also picked up some ice. And at this point I had nearly everything I needed, including cold beer, but I was still missing one last component: Beer Gas.



I was going to get this first, remember? Locally, this is available from Linde Gas (which used to be Holox, which is where I got CO2 the last time I needed it) though at the moment they're sold out of Beer Gas. I had to call around a bit.

Eventually I found a company called Air Lite, which ended up being a guy named Raymond and a truck. I drove out to his place of business (after paging him a few times) because I didn't feel like paying the delivery fee, you know, on top of what I had already and was now about to shell out ($35 plus an $80 deposit on the tank). But even though I had called a couple days ahead and set an appointment, he wasn't home. I say 'home' because his place of business is his home, out on some rural farm road in Hiram, GA. If I had know that ahead of time, I might have paid the delivery fee and saved myself a 50 mile round trip. I was expecting some sort of office, with a receptionist or counter staff or something. I guess licensing requirements for this sort of thing aren't too stringent.

Actually, I had to make 2 round trips, because I drove it again about a week later. I made fairly sure he was absolutely going to be there the second time, but even so, I still waited 45 minutes before Raymond and his truck showed up. I got the damn Beer Gas, though, and just in time really because at this point the keg had been on ice for 3 hours.



One last note on the setup: CO2 will run beer at around 4-10psi, maybe a bit more depending on the length of lines. Beer Gas (a mix of N2 and CO2) will need to be at 30psi, or more. I don't feel like running Dalton's or the universal gas law to figure out why (what was that one again, PV=NRT or some such?) and it likely has as much to do with the restrictor plate in the stout faucet as anything else, but if you're used to standard draft, just remember you'll need to really crank this past anything you're accustomed to.

Ah yes, but what do you get for $596 and a couple weeks worth of frustration, followed by a single afternoon of throwing stuff together?



you get a lovely pint. times about 90. (I'm trying not to think of the per pint cost. It's actually cheaper to buy them at the pub. The investment should average out over time, though.) (eventually)

what's next? Well first, I'm thinking to hell with the bins. This needs a refrigerator, and it needs one right quick. I'll be pricing those, and likely picking up a cold-machine of one type or another sometime after I sign I new lease, at the end of summer. (no point in buying it now if I have to move it to a new apartment later).

And of course we all enjoyed this keg over the weekend...

Sometimes, I'm surprised I haven't strangled someone.

So how was my holiday weekend? Well, first off, if it weren't for the Guinness I would likely have been very pissed.

Thursday, I enjoyed a pint or six. Just to make sure the equipment worked, mind you, not really because I wanted to. [snicker]

Friday sucked though.

Let me backtrack a little-- about seven weeks ago, I first submitted a monthly schedule for May and told both my boss and all the people in my department that I would be taking Memorial Day Weekend off. As in, out-of-town-and-leaving-the-cell-phone-behind kind of day off. Also, I typically make up the department schedule a couple weeks in advance, and I had to request a couple of paid vacation days to stretch the long weekend to 6 days off. So by the time last week rolled around, I had already mentioned my plans to at least a half dozen people, including two members of senior management, and done it twice in writing.

Monday, 23 May, we find out the District Manager is planning a store visit that Friday. Snap decision on his part; maybe he thought he'd catch us off balance or something if he didn't give any advance warning. I thought, "Well, at least I can get the department in shape before leaving". I busted my ass for the next two days, working about 20 hours total, to make sure it all gets done. On Wednesday, I finally finished the display changeover, I've got my staff on track so everyone knows what's going on, and I walked away. It should have been that easy.

Thursday, I get a call on my cell phone while driving back to my apartment with a keg in the back seat: "So, Matt, we know it's your day off, but what time were you going to be in tomorrow?"

...

My boss was actually surprised that I was in a bad mood when I got in that Friday morning. I was there at 8:30am, told them I had plans (not just plans, but reservations, food for a long weekend, a trunk full of camping gear... oh yeah, and a keg of beer. But I didn't feel the need to go into that much detail) and that I was leaving by 11am, if not earlier. I then spent a couple of hours hanging around my department, doing pretty much nothing while waiting for the district manager to show up, and to finish whatever else he needed to do first for our store visit. I figured, since I had mentioned it roughly 100 times, that we'd start in the music department and get done with the whatever it was the DM needed, so I could leave. Didn't work out that way. Oddly, folks seem surprised when 11am rolled around and I mentioned I was leaving. Again. Now, really. But I stopped, went back to the office, waited a few minutes while the DM was on the phone, and then I had a brief 30 minute conversation with the district manager at that point, covering all this stuff that I had prepared in neat little folders, as if my actual presence would somehow affect the words already typed there, making them truer or more factual or something.

I'm not stupid. At this point, they might have guessed that I didn't want to be there, but they had no idea how angry I actually was.

I didn't leave for the campsite until 2pm, but that was because I went home, had a couple of beers, and tried to decompress before leaving, finally, on the vacation that was supposed to have started when I left the building on Wednesday afternoon.

Oh, and how was camping? We killed the keg of Guinness Friday before midnight. (not a total tragedy, there was other beer to be had) I twisted my ankle Saturday night (it's still healing, btw, though I'm not limping, noticeably, at the moment), all my gear got rained on Sunday morning (including the towels I had left on a line to "dry"), I started to come down with a fever, and of course, there was the tick I found on a fairly private (and sensitive) part of my anatomy.

Between the ankle, and the fever, and the rain, I called it quits, packed up and went home late Sunday afternoon.

Actually, I had a blast While it seems that some god must hate me (for whatever reason), the week-from-hell before my trip and all injuries aside, I really enjoyed Friday night and Saturday. next time I'll have to figure out how to enjoy a couple of days like that without having to dig myself out of a crapstorm just to get there and back.

I was going to post an scathing indictment of capitalism here, explaining why free markets aren't really free, and how people who complain that the government is "interfering" and "stealing" money from hard working citizens don't really understand that a lot of capitalism derives not from natural laws, but from rules and regulations set up by the government.

Like I said, I was going to post a scathing indictment, but I don't feel like researching the damn thing, and unlike talk-radio assholes, I'm not going to just spout off without having some facts and figures to back me up.

I guess I'll toss this one out to the class instead: The government prints fiat money, which is off the gold (or any other) standard and has no intrinsic value. Modern day multinationals owe their existence to the fiction of corporate "citizens", which don't really exist except on paper and in the laws. Capital markets (including not just the currency & stock markets, but more boring things like banks and mortgages) rest on this shaky foundation, which is nothing more than words: what the government says it is.

Draw your own conclusions. I'm sure they'll differ from mine. But a little progressive taxation is hardly the evil Republicans make it out to be. (key word: progressive, as in, those with more money should be taxed more.) (I guess this makes me a socialist. or a radical. or poor. )

It's an artificial system, a big planet-wide game. Taxation and income redistribution aren't a matter of the government unfairly depriving people of their income, it's a matter of putting some of the game money back in the box so other people can play. Those who don't explicitly know that they're asking to cheat are just aping the comments of pundits smarter than they are (who rabble rouse intentionally to cloud the issue).


All right, that's enough. Time to put the soap box back in the closet for another half year.

odd thought of the day:
(actually, I'm sure a lot of my thoughts would be considered odd)

I miss vests. There was a time when a well dressed gentleman would of course have a waistcoat, with a pocket watch and fob. If it weren't for the expense of paying a tailor, I'd like to have a half dozen vests in a variety of colors and fabrics. As it it, when I can find a vest it is either: made cheaply, part of a 3 piece suit, or (of course) in a size and cut that doesn't fit me.

Since I hate wrist watches (or anything on my wrist) the option of a vest and pocket watch would be nice. if I could find one.

I hope these little nonsequitors that I manage to squeeze in during my lunch breaks are relatively entertaining. (it's odd how it's always my 'lunch' break, even when I'm working a night shift and I get a break at 9pm) I am knee deep in, um, novel writing for this and the next few weeks (knee deep may be the most appropriate image/metaphor for my writing, in fact. But the artist is always his own worse critic) so unfortunately my tabulas will get slighted.

All I have time for is the silly, the odd, the random; or the recycled:

"her eyes were dark, to match the black of her hair, but her pale skin stood in stark contrast. She was a monochrome beauty, black on white,
night on bone
shadow over moonlight
blackberries and cream

It would seem I am doomed to an (almost) endless series of hopeless crushes."

This thought occured to me again last night/this morning, when I realized that I might be developing a new crush. I wish I had time to pursue it. The quote above isn't about the new twinkle in my eye, it was my first impression of one on my last crushes, something I wrote about ten minutes after meeting her. I still like the image.

And I wonder what blackberries and cream might actually taste like. (prolly be pretty good if you used vanilla ice cream...)

I don't know if it's a weird virus going around, or some alignment of planets, or a particularly vindictive club of some sort, but whatever the cause the customers are getting more and more persnickity lately. I'm losing the game. I find myself apologizing almost hourly for stuff that isn't my fault, and using everything I know about the registers and our ordering system to keep people happy. I'm discovering tricks I wouldn't have thought possible just a few weeks ago, and honestly, I'm not sure why I have to--

you get a CD. you give me money. It's not difficult. Why are some people trying to make this into a major production?

It looks like I'm going to miss another self imposed deadline. I'm a little pissed at myself, but it's for good reasons, I guess. I'm trying to incorporate another major subplot into the first draft, and that means going back to some stuff that's already written and droping hints, tying together storylines, and in one case, inserting a new character into the first few chapters so that by the time I need her 200 and x pages further on, she won't be a sudden apparition.

So I'm missing the deadline anyway. A half day won't matter.

I've got the day off of work. I've got Batman the animated series on DVD (it was a sale, all 3 boxes--85 episodes--for what worked out to be $26 each). And I have enough money left out of my last paycheck to go out and get some (too much) beer. And I can always switch off to Robotech if I get sick of Batman. (the roommate picked up those on DVD about a month ago. )

I'm declaring a 12 hour break from the damn novel. If I'm still awake 'round midnight, I'll fire up the word processor and do honest work, for as long as the caffiene can hold up against fatigue and alcohol.

Currently feeling: anticipatory drunk

I was going through my Netflix queue and wondering just when I was going to have time to watch all that stuff when an odd thought occured to me:

How many other guys my age are still watching this many cartoons? and thinking about my other viewing habits, it seems I spend more time watching cartoon network than anything else. (I swap between CN and the Food network a bit, actually) ([nosequitor]Iron Chef![/nonsequitor]) I can tell you when anime is going to come on G4/TechTV. I know the saturday night lineup on Adult Swim, even if I can't quite manage to stay up until 2am anymore to watch it. And even though I hate most of what comes on Disney+Nick+Saturday-morning-network crap, I can still tell you about them.

And of course, there's all this japanese stuff I'm renting through netflix. I know there are other fans out there, but how many are out of college, holding down full time jobs?

(actually, with these prices, I'm guessing quite a few.)

via BoingBoing (which you should be reading daily anyway): A director/filmmaker on why the movie studios approach to DRM is funked up

I've been slowly culling links from other sources as well; I guess it's finally time for another weekly [ha!] web trawl posting.

I may get around to that this Sunday. here's a couple more to tide you over until then:

HP madness, also via BB

sex, crosswords, & running, via Yahoo!  (oops, link expired)

I wish I had something insightful to say, but nothing springs to mind at the moment.  Today is payday (direct deposit is so very handy) and tomorrow is a day off (finally) so I can predict a reasonable amount of drinking to take place this evening after work (trivia @ Jocks & Jills, Galleria, 8ish) though of course I've been drinking fairly regularly all week...

I'm an economic-dependant alcoholic.  I only drink when I can afford to.    With rent and utilities covered for another month, well, beer is a good friend of mine.  I like spending as much time with her as I can.

 (no comments from the peanut gallery on my choice of pronoun in that last sentence, please.  It disturbs me a bit, that particular word choice came into my mind first) (so maybe this entry is insightful)

My ankle is still healing, so I suppose it's just as well that I'm stuck working though the next few saturdays.  I couldn't really run on the weekends with the usual crew even if I wanted to.  Oddly, I'm not gaining weight, even with the relative lack of activity and relative wealth of beer-drinking that I've enjoyed the past couple of weeks.  (when I figure that out, I'll write the diet book)

anyone out there read any good books lately?  I've got a stack of paperbacks waiting on me, but I'm open to suggestions.  (working at the bookstore, ironically, leaves me with too many options, which is almost as bad as too few)

Oh, my, it has been a while, hasn’t it? I’m not even sure how many of the assorted linkages below will actually work, considering a lot of them are from news sites and those have the annoying habit of going stale on us.

Guess there’s nothing else for it but to post and see:

damn, I gave up 4 years too early...
you know, I own one of these. (more-or-less unrelated caveat: don't log onto the internet and shop while drunk.)
the buzz behind caffiene
Nemesis: time limit of 62 million years
critiques of libertarianism
mexican cops have to read one book a month.
1000 year lifespan

bitch drank my coffee

Now, I don't know how you listen to music, but when I'm going through my MP3s, I use WinAmp. with Milkdrop. Oh, gods, this is so damn cool it almost makes me want to use [marijuana, or insert your favorite psychoactive chemical here]. of course, I'm perfectly happy watching it sober (or rather, only under the influence of alcohol) but gods, this has to be what pot is for. If Milkdrop were a pimp, it'd have to have clearance sale, because it rocks so much ass there's a hell of a lot of ass to spare. (if you don’t mind lugging around the laptop. Maybe I should see if this runs on a Treo or a Palm before I give it the ultimate thumbs-up)

but that's my opinion. I'm sure the B&W LED display on your Ipod is nice too.
[snicker]

have you ever thought how bizarre it would have been to sit in on the meeting where the Mor-bucks folks named the Frappuccino(tm, etc)?

"Hey, why don't we call it a coffee shake?"
"No milk. No ice cream, we can't call it a shake."
"But's that what it is. We'll use a mix, McD's uses a mix. What's the dif?"
"well, 'shake' just isn't Italian enough"
"I went along with you with that venti-instead-of-large crap. You owe me one; work with me on this. Doesn't it sound tasty? Coffee Shake. Coffee Chocolate Shake. Caramel Creme Coffee Shake. Heck, I want one right now and we haven't invented it yet."
"no."
"... what? c'mon, why not?"
"I said no. No shakes."
"Well, OK then, That's it, I'm quitting. Maybe DQ will want to do a coffee shake. You and your crap-a-chinos can go suck one."
[exit, stage left]
"hmmm... crapachino. crappucino. Johnson, you work on that, get back to me this afternoon."

Look at a Mor-bucks menu board. Does anything on there look like coffee? I've actually heard someone order "plain, boring coffee please"
(I will admit to a growing coffee dependency myself. And yes, my dealer of choice is Starbucks. I order a large ice coffee though) (and put up with the question every day: "Large? Do you want a grande or a venti, sir?")

I wonder what the markup is on coffee? Maybe I should open up a coffee bar rather than a regular bar. Oooo, or maybe both. "In Xanadu did Kublai Khan a mighty pleasure dome decree": I need to open a one stop sin emporium, with beer, wine, booze, coffee, cigars, pipe tobacco. And ice cream. mmmmm. Coffee shake.

or a Guinness Shake.

mmmmmmmmm.

...and a few indulgences. And somewhere in my budget I need to find a few bucks to accomodate a new radiator for my long-suffering toyota.

It's amazing really, sitting at the bar and watching money burn. I know how much a pint costs. Dinner, too, though often it can be surprising what some places like to chage for an entree. (it can be, like, a week's worth of food. I know, because I remember weeks where $10 was all I had left)(after beer, but then, priorities are important)

the image that is most apt is lighting a fuse (a metaphor I've used before, and will likely resort to again, because I'm a lazy bastard.) On a payday, you figure, "I'll visit here, and there, and buy this other thing online..." and we're done. My paychecks don't really stretch all that far.

sssssSSSSSSs..... bang! Hey, we're broke again.

I haven't gotten quotes yet, but I figure car repairs will be in the $500-600 range. I can't afford that yet, and since I've figured out ways to limp by for a week (or month) or two, well, I'm out at a bar spending money on beer.
(my second bar for the day-- hey, it's been a rough week. inventory, training new minions... I've got a full plate, and this dish needs a nice beer to help it go down easier)

(not that I ever need an excuse. "Hey, I've got a pulse! Woohoo! Let's go out drinkin'!")

one of these days this sort of behavior might present a problem. Or rather, present a problem I can't deal with. But I'm an inventive and creative sort, I'm sure I can always find the loopholes....

If it helps:

This afternoon, I was checking email and adding rentals to Netflix from the Fox and Hound on Collier--

Afterward I took advantage of a "natural" break (5 pints is a common stopping point, right?) and took my drunk-but-still-under-the-legal-limit ass first to a barber for a haircut, and then to Jocks & Jills (cited previously) for dinner and possibly trivia. If I'm still here in 3 hours. Oh my, 3 hours to kill, in a bar. What ever will I do? [snicker]

da Fox, J&J, Summit's, Fado-- and these are just the bars I visit weekly. More adopt wifi all the time. They (who is 'they' anyway?) are making it too easy on me. Is it only a matter off time before they figure out a way to charge me for this?

Who cares? Beer and blogs forever. If I could afford to, I'd likely post every entry while drunk at some damn bar.


you know, life is pretty damn good. (the pesky details of battery life, available wifi, and sufficient money to pay for it all aside.)

edit: originally posted 4:23am, bumped to the top of the list because this is likely more interesting than that other crap posted today

There are probably a lot of new albums you should be listening to. I can’t really cover them all, but I can at least recommend a few that have crossed my headphones recently:

Original Soundtrack for the surf movie Sprout – yeah, surf music. It’s about as laid back as you’d think it would be. This is good background music, a soundtrack for just about anything you’d want to do. (track 7, Butternut, is reason enough to buy the whole album) (yeah, and it’s one of those that’s only available on the OST, wouldn’t ya know.) [reference High Fidelity, "Hey, Wanna see me sell 3EPs from the Beta Band?" – it’s that kind of song]

Speaking of: 3EPs from the Beta Band.

Los Super Seven, Heard it on the X (their latest) and going back, Canto (their 2nd album). Heard it on the X is a different effort, and 'rocks' more than LS7’s previous albums, but if you wanted to know what a border town Mariachi/TexMex bar band (with a dash of Brazilian Jazz) might actually sound like, you need to check out Canto or LS7’s self-titled debut.

J Ralph, Illusionary Movements of Geraldine and Nazu. You’ve heard it before, you just can’t place where (I’ll give you a hint: it was probably a TV commercial). This album is more for the classical/orchestral music fan, but is still a good listen; here’s hoping Mr. Ralph puts out more albums, including a pop and/or ambient sort of thing.


(yes, I'm still up at 4am on a Saturday. damn that tasty, tasty caffeine.)

taking a look over entries posted 6/23:

now folks, I know you know that I like the occasional beer (providing we define 'occasional' as 'once every 20 minutes') but I suppose even I can admit that every now and then I'm going to post something vague and/or incoherent because I happen to be drinking. Going mobile, I even find places where I can post and drink simultaneously (aside: sobriety check, "can I still spell simultaneously?" Check, check.) and that really does nothing for either the overall value or coherence of my lovely, lonely little blog.

rephrasing: I should probably wait before posting in general; but also particularly on my days off. I need an editor.

the only available editor is me (I work cheap) so I suppose I should get in the habit of writing to a buffer, and then waiting to post until I have a chance for (sober) (well, slightly-more-sober) reflection.

But then again, my blog would lose some of its verite appeal if I were to constantly double-check everything before I posted. And also, it seems like a lot of effort to put into a forum that is really just for me (and me precious, treasured readers. All 3 of you.)

eh, you should probably just ignore this post too. I've been drinking since midnight. (damn that tasty, tasty caffeine. Note: beer and caffeine do not cancel each other out on a one-for-one basis. I've noticed this before, in that a cup of coffee will not sober me up. Apparently the more-or-less-reverse is also true; if you've had too much coffee, merely drinking beer/alcohol will not allow one to go to sleep.)

Ah, yes. Staying up to watch the sunrise. I can think of many times in my life where it would have been romantic to see the sun come up, with select company, after many hours of [deleted]

and then you take a moment to appreciate the dawn with the one you love (or the flavor of the moment) (or her and her cousin/roommate/best-friend-from-high-school, or any three of the above) (so, obviously the lack of sleep is taking its toll and I'm drifting just a bit too far into the realms of fantasy...) (and. well, it's a nice little dream while it lasts)

OK, I'm drifting. Give me a break. I've been awake for 22 hours, and drinking for the last seven. (and yes, it's sunrise. Hell, even without the fantasies, that's enough to make me smile) (in case you're wondering: no. no, that's not a good trade-off)

so. sunrise. Well, at some point in the next 23.9 hours, I'll need to make up the dept. schedules for the next three weeks, write 2200 words for one damn novel or the other, do some laundry, eat, and it would prolly be a good idea to go to sleep at some point. I've gone as long as 70 hours without sleep before (week before finals, fall 1995) but I don't really feel like doing that again. The coffee will fail soon. And I've been drinking since midnight. (...you know, there should be one more beer in the cooler...)

the olmec/maya/aztec predicted an end to the world about this point in the grand cosmological cycles; I wonder if they could guarantee that before I have to go to work tomorrow morning?

some days, I can never be sure what's up until the day is over.

Of course, living on beer and coffee, with too little sleep, and not nearly enough time (it seems to me) to get all the stuff done that I want/need to get done (well, I suppose I am goofing off just a bit) -- being a bit frazzled all the time certainly doesn't help my overall judgement, or sense of what's normal anymore.

[aside: living on coffee, I can finally see why caffeine is an ingredient in diet pills. I never thought of it as an appetite supressant, but I suppose that's because I used to drink it only in sugary soda-- glucose has a more powerful affect on blood chemistry than a little alkaloid like our buddy mr. c. mmm... coffee for lunch again.]

I thought Monday would suck. It did, but seemed o.k. by the time midnight rolled around. I thought Tuesday would suck. It did, but work was o.k.-- it was only after I got home from work and noted that Netflix seems to be dragging its figurative feet, and my next batch of DVDs would be delayed until Wednesday. (today) (but it looks like I'll be getting a whole lot at once. The mailman must think I'm some sort of unemployed movie junkie, with the # of DVDs that come in through the box)

I think today might suck. But that's just because I've gotten into the habit. really, there'll be no telling until the end of the night, when head hits pillow, if this day (or any other) is good or bad.