Alcholic what?!

Well, the wife is out of town visiting her mother, so I suppose I have time for an update, and seeing as I haven't written anything here since last I set foot in Texas, then perhaps now is a fitting time.

Texas is huge, but mostly empty, much like the inhabitants' heads. A note to anyone driving here - they drive ten miles under the speed limit, AT LEAST. Being from Southern California, I'm used to everyone driving ten miles OVER the speed limit. So to me, everyone here is driving twenty miles too slow. My barber told me that things are a little slower here, and he wasn't kidding.

Well after several weeks and nigh unto a hundred applications, I got tired of watching my pitiful savings dive bomb, I took a job at another liquor store. Yes, this is what having a Master's degree in English will do for you, make you fit to work in alcohol. Just look at my coworkers. Two others have Masters in English, another two have Bachelors, and yet another is studying for his B.A.

English degree = Alcohol.

Faulkner, Hemingway, Fitzgerald et al. Let's face it, writers are born to booze...

hang on, I need another beer...

Right. Where was I? Beer. Check.

Texas has the most asinine liquor laws. There's still a lot of blue laws on the books. Liquor cannot be sold on Sundays, and no Beer and Wine before Noon. Any beer coming into the state must pass a "Label Commission" which apparently smokes crack before passing judgement on which beers are allowed in. For example: Dogfish Head's Raging Bitch was ok to enter, but Dogfish Head's Bitches' Brew was not. Apparently they have a problem with alliteration.

There are two breweries here. 2. I just moved from a place with 40+ breweries.

Still, at least it's not Utah.

Right, so the Girlfriend. Not many of you know that I proposed to her a year ago. Not officially, of course, since I didn't have a ring, and I didn't get down on one knee...but a year ago I already knew I wanted to marry her.

Our first night here in our apartment I got down on my knee and gave her a ring. Thanks to my good friend Janessa for helping me get a ring. Two re-sizes later and it fits my loving wife's insanely small hands.

I'm pretty sure her hands are small enough to get work as a hand model. If Palahniuk's 'Invisible Monsters' was right, that is...

Anyways, we're getting married January 15th, fyi, for those of you have haven't noticed my numerous Facebook updates proclaiming this. Yes, it's short notice, yes, I'm sorry, yes, we're aware that means many people won't be able to make it.

So anyways, back to Texas and the strange new world I find myself in.

I made Chili. I make good Chili. Last second changes to my Chili tend to throw off the spices, but still, it came out tasty.

Back to Alcohol...

In case you didn't know, alcohol and caffeine is a stupid idea. Downers and uppers. A couple kids up in Washington were drinking one of those insipid drinks and died. Legal ramifications? All caffeinated liquor is being pulled form shelves. That means Pink vodka, Belvedere Intense, a few others. Google it, don't make me be your source of news, that's John Stewart's job.

There is, however, alcoholic whipped cream. Yes. And it's flavored. Chocolate, Vanilla, Raspberry...and something else, i forget. I bought one of the Chocolates....and I'm sure you want to know how it tasted.

Taint.

You shake the bottle, upend it and spray some cream into your mouth. It's chocolate, yum....there's alcohol...hmmm, alcoholic chocolate, like a mudslide, cool...hrmmm, doesn't quite taste right...ick, aftertaste.

Basically the alcohol is cheap grain spirits, like the vodka I drank to get through District 9. It makes the chocolate taste like it's a year old and not worth eating. There's a bit of an aftertaste, though not quite as bad as Heineken.

Still, amusement factor alone, Alcoholic Chocolate Whipped Cream.

Think I'd rather have a Brooklyn Brewery's Black Chocolate Stout. Or a Harpoon Chocolate Stout. or a Youngs Double Chocolate Stout.

or some Godiva Vodka.

or a Mudslide.

Still, I suppose this would serve as a garnish for a Mudslide...

I am the Rev. Dr. Godzilla, with whipped cream.

Tex Jex

Know, O reader, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the sons of Aryas, there was an age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars--Nemedia, Ophir, Brythunia, Hyperborea, Zamora with its dark-haired women and towers of spider-haunted mystery, Zingaria with its chivalry, Koth that bordered on the pastoral lands of Shem, Stygia with its shadow-guarded tombs, Hyrkania whose riders wore steel and silk and gold. But the proudest kingdom in the world was Texas, reigning supreme in the dreaming west. Hither came Jex, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandaled feet.

Apologies to R.E. Howard, but since Texas was his homeland, I deigned it apropos.

I am having a Viking rebirth. Everything I own has been loaded into my ship, and I have set forth not to burn at sea, but to carve my kingdom upon the earth.

My Manifest Destiny is not to load my wagon and head west, but to load up my truck, Bucephalos, and conquer my known world.

I was driving for 12 hours, of course there's going to be multiple esoteric references. Deal with it. And yes, I named my truck Bucephalos.

Today is the first day I have set foot in Texas. I have come through the fires of the Arizona Desert, and the wind and rains of Hurricane Alex. This state is trying its damndest to expunge the Jex, but we're tenacious little bastards, and we're going to rip its bloody throat out.

Stay tuned, true believers, stay tuned.

Tequila!

Whilst sorting through the paperwork on my desk, I came across the list of Tequilas that were featured at the last Tequila Tasting I worked at.

So here you go:

Sauza Tres Generaciones Anejo

Chinaco Blanco

Oro Azul Anejo

Fortaleza Blanco

Chaya Anejo

Cazadores Reposado

Patron Silver

Patron Reposado

Patron Anejo

Gran Patron Platinum

Don Eduardo Blanco

Don Eduardo Reposado

Don Eduardo Anejo

Partida Anejo

D Los Altos Reposado

Milagro Select Barrel Silver

Milagro Select Barrel Reposado

El Conde Azul Reposado

Gran Centenario Anejo

Casa Noble 5yr Anejo

La Pinta Pomegranate Tequila

Clase Azul Platino

Corralejo Reposado

Don Julio Blanco

Herencia Anejo

Jose Cuervo Reserva da la Familia Platino

1921 Special Reserve

Pizza Port Strong Ale Festival

Budweiser has an ABV, alcohol by volume, of 5%. Guinness is 4.5%. Your average beer is not high up there in alcohol. A strong ale, however, has at least 8%. Still not as strong as Wine, which is usually around 12 to 14%, but Beer Festivals are so much more fun. So what the hell did I end up drinking last night at the Pizza Port Strong Ale Festival?!

30 dollars gets you in the door, where you get a glass and tickets for your 8 tasters. 8 four once tastes, 30 bucks. Might seem like a lot of money, but factor in how much it would cost to try 8 beers of this level. Nectar Ales' Black Xantus, for example, sells for about 15 dollars a bottle. That's half the cost of the festival right there.

The best beer I had last night was Bear Republic's Clobberskull. It's an English Strong style, with an ABV of 10.5%, and aged in Cabernet barrels. I love English Strong ales, definitely my favorite style, and this one was true to the style, even if it came out of California.

I got to try the Life & Limb, which is a collaboration between Dogfish Head and Sierra Nevada Brewing. Strong Ale, ABV of 10.2%.

La Jolla Brewing's Thor, an Imperial Red, ABV 8.6%, dry hopped with Cascade, Amarillo and Simcoe.

Ballast Point's Barmy, a Honey Fruit Beer, ABV 10.0%, made with honey and apricots.

Alaskan Brewing's Baltic Porter, ABV 9.8%.

Ballast Point's Victory at Sea, an Imperial Porter, ABV 10%, made with coffee and vanilla bean, and the best beer made in San Diego.

Buckbean's Very Noddy, ABV 10.5%, an Imperial Schwarzbier.

Deschutes Brewing's Black Butte XXI, an imperial porter, 11% ABV, aged in Stranahan Whiskey barrels.

Drake's Brewing's Denogginizer, a Double IPA with an ABV of 9.2% ABV.

Grand Teton's Black Cauldron, an Imperial Stout with an ABV of 8%.

Green Flash's Palate Wrecker, a Double IPA, ABV 9.5%

Papago Brewing's Oude Zuipers, a Tripel, ABV 11%.

Hair of the Dog's Doggie Claws, a Barleywine, ABV 11.5%

Lagunitas' Gnarleywine, a barleywine, ABV 9.7%.

Yeah, that's 14 beers. Had a few more than the 8 tasters. It's good to know how to work the system.

A New Religion

So today, whilst preparing to foist off more alcohol upon the ever ignorant public, I started thinking about the concept of good and evil, in the paradigm of the Christian religion, of course, because they're so much fun to make fun of.

The idea of hell, of evil. I thought about the presupposition that this place necessarily be somewhere other than the place for good people. but then I thought, if God is omnipotent and omniscient, then he's also an evil mother fucker. Literally, in the case of the holy trinity, figuratively in this case.

So I started thinking about an afterlife where both the good and the evil are side by side. You know, kind of like Los Angeles. And then I had my great Revelation.

We're all dead.

Yes, you see, we're already in the afterlife, and there's both the good, the bad and the ugly...would that still be both? Mmmm, grammatical details.

Anyways, I figure you die, but then you cling to those past memories, the idea of how your life once was, and your mental state clouds your afterlife and creates this shithole you call your living life. But you're not live, you're dead.

We're all dead. (Yes, I've been reading about the Nac Mac Feegle, leave me alone.)

Now I must propagate this prophecy, and convince people to release their grasp on this mental hold of a previous existance. Die to be truly dead again!

Killed by Death.

This is my contribution to humanity. Decreasing the Overpopulated planet. Heh.

Now if I could just work twinkies into it.

Commitment.

In October, the University of California Davis begins accepting applications for the Fall 2010 semester. I plan on applying for their Viticulture program.

This means moving to Davis, which if you don't know, is situated northeast of San Francisco, near Sacramento. Most likely I can transfer jobs up there, I'm not sure.

What I am sure of is that I am making zero headway here in San Diego. Yes, I have a sweet life. I live half a block from the beach, in perfect weather, with hundreds of attractions to amuse me, from the Zoo to Brews. Heh. I should be in marketing.

While it's fun to work where I do, it's still a shitty retail job.

I'm a 31 yr old living a 21 yr old's life. And I'm going to fix that.

Of course, all this is contingent upon my being accepted at UC Davis. I wonder if I should even mention having a Master's or not. Would that be prudent, when I'm going for a second Bachelor's?

Decision Reached.

You know, really, I could just keep this vague, record all the comments, advice and whatnot, and turn it into a really fun self-help book. Kind of like Choose Your Own Adventure, the Magic 8 Ball, et al.

Don't know what to do? Just flip this book open to any page and get your answer!

Flip flip flip "Get the bloody surgery done you wanker."

Flip flip flip "What kind of crack are you on to even consider such a thing?"

You know, like a more modern I Ching.