beer

Empty seats for Federer? OMG!

Okay, so here’s Roger Federer serving at the 2012 Olympic Games. My dad would have a boner watching that—it would rock his world seeing Federer send Alejandro Falla (who made Federer work for it) packing in the first round.

Photograph by: Stefan Wermuth, REUTERS

You’d think tickets for tennis in London would be scarce as Broker’s Gin at LBHQ. You’d expect a packed house, even on Day One.

But check out the empty seats!

Londoners were scandalized to see scores of empty seats in primo stadium locations—not just for tennis but for aquatics and basketball. Wouldn’t you be pissed if, when you attempted to buy tickets, you encountered “Sold Out” signs—then, watching in a hot apartment on a crappy TV, you saw these big, empty patches in the audience? OMG, I’d be pissed! I might smash my beer bottle over the back of the chair, then rampage around London with my makeshift shiv.

Okay, maybe I wouldn’t. I totally wouldn’t.

But I’d expect the Olympic Games organizers to answer Londoners’ collective sense of WTF. Which, in a public statement, British Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt more or less said would happen.

“We think it was accredited seats that belong to sponsors, but if they are not going to turn up, we want those tickets to be available for members of the public, because that creates the best atmosphere. So we are looking at this very urgently at the moment.”

OMG, dude, I hope so!

ASTROLIQUOR for July 27 to August 2—What the stars say you should drink!

My Fellow Inebriates,

Here’s your booze horoscope:

Planet Mars is making you berserk with rage this week, Aries. Friends and family will run for cover, and—needless to say—you must stay out of bars or find yourself in (another) bar fight. Not only that, but there’s a Cancer pub-crawling for an Aries like you, and once this person snags you, he/she won’t let go. OMG! You need to drink something calming…and solitary. How about vodka with cherry brandy and orange juice?

Taurus, technical things will make you feel like a nitwit this week. Usually you’re pretty intuitive about computers, stereo gear, and the blender—but a brainful of rum makes them all a challenge. In fact, even going to the bathroom is a challenge. This won’t do, Taurus. It’s one thing to tie one on; it’s quite another to drink yourself into incontinence. Try to socialize a bit instead, especially on Tuesday and Thursday.

You become sappy and nostalgic for pastimes you once enjoyed, Gemini, such as board games and charades. This was before you had a computer: pre-Farmville and pre-Sims. Time to break out the Pisco for an old-fashioned drinking game. Invite some friends over and defrag your computer while you play Asshole. The stars say Sunday’s the best day, especially if nudity is involved.

You have a stalker of the pleasant kind, Cancer—someone you never thought would notice you. Get with it and invite him/her over. Make sure you have a classy drink to share:

  • 1 cup vodka
  • 6 Coors Light cans
  • 2 cans pink lemonade concentrate

Leo, work is boring the hell out of you and progress feels minimal. (Make sure your boss doesn’t get the same impression.) The week’s frustrations are compounded by a car problem—a small issue you ignored, which then got out of control. Sounds like an excellent opportunity to ride the bus to work. Bus rides can be like safaris, depending on your ‘hood, and a flask of Hypnotiq will make the commute even more exotic.

The stars are financially-minded this week, Virgo. Analyze your situation: you may be living above or below your means. If you add it all up you may be delighted to find you have extra money for household items…perhaps a new bed or couch, plus a crapload of Bacardi 151 and peach schnapps. (Or maybe just the booze.)

Libra, you’re feeling tied down by work, relationships, and debt. What happened to the freedom you used to enjoy? Let’s face it, it’s gone, but you can still go on a wicked bender and temporarily forget your shackles. Equal parts tequila and peppermint schnapps should produce the necessary mood adjustment.

Sunshine and sand beckon, Scorpio. No doubt you deserve it, no matter what your peeps say. But can you afford a sunny vacation? Probably not, so put it on your credit card. While you’re at it, charge a 46er of Smirnoff and some DeKuiper Razzmatazz too. These products are essential for mental health, and they help remove spending inhibitions, which should make your holiday awesome.

Sagittarius, there’s nothing more soul-destroying than doing what’s expected of you. Is there a passion you’re resisted pursuing because it would conflict with your career? Now’s the time to go for it! And if your passion is simply…drinking, well then, here’s your recipe:

  • 1 oz vodka
  • 1 oz gin
  • 1 oz Everclear
  • 1 oz rum
  • 1 oz apple schnapps
  • 1 oz whiskey
  • 1 oz tequila
  • 1 oz rye

All this goodness goes into a Big Gulp. The recipe for a passionate life.

You’ve been called unflappable in the past, Capricorn, but the truth is you’re not handling stress very well lately. Even when your brain feels okay, your body tells a different story. Are you crashing on the weekend? Getting sick on your holidays? Having bourbon for breakfast? If you are having bourbon for breakfast, send me your address. I’ll come over and join you.

Aquarius, the stars want you to weigh your expenditures against your expenses. (I know, the stars suck sometimes.) Good timing—you can expect a small windfall very soon. This in turn will inspire you to invest in your future earnings, creating a prosperous spiral. And this in turn will attract new relationships (go figure). Keep some vodka handy for fairweather friends—they can be boring when you’re not drunk.

Pisces, gear down this week. Work slowly, without excessive effort. Take a nature walk. Don’t worry about productivity; your job can’t be that important. In fact, it’s often nice to get fired during the summer so you can enjoy the beach. Try sipping tequila, Jack Daniel’s, and Jagermeister openly at work—it’s a time-honored strategy for getting yourself a permanent holiday.

FISGARD 150 BAVARIAN LAGER—No secret, this is a weird beer

My Fellow Inebriates,

Yesterday our next-door neighbor (the nice one, on the right) said, “So, I heard you’re moving.” Her four-year-old, informed by our four-year-old, had told her, and she was clearly wondering why we hadn’t.

Meanwhile, the nasty neighbors on the left had started shuffling round their yard, overregulating their children’s water-play, effectively wringing any possible fun out of it and raising the general neighborhood stress level.

We wanted to say, “We haven’t told anybody, because of people like that.” But instead my mum shrugged and said something idiotic like, “Yeah, we’ve never really fit into this whole townhouse thing.”

For numerous reasons this may be true:

  • the excessive clutter in the yard, including a dirt-encrusted water table, discarded bubble-soap containers, and irreparably punctured “spraying beach ball” beneath which a wood-beetle colony is thriving, plus a Frisbee for anyone interested in hurling such a thing five meters
  • enough bikes, strollers, and scooters for seven children, slung all over the yard
  • the buckled-beyond-repair garage door with the gaping hole, plus spare parts (described as “scrap metal” in a recent Strata Council warning letter)
  • my mother’s proven inability to limit her blue language in a community where even a whisper travels the distance of several units

Our mean neighbors to the left, whose children must tiptoe around their little show home (“don’t touch the walls!”), will undoubtedly do a happy dance when we move. But we’ll miss the nice neighbors on the right with their friendly clutter-rivalry (they have a double stroller sunning itself in the rhododendron bed). We’ll also miss their fearless little four-year-old and the way she tears into our home sopping wet, whipping a spray of hose-water over the laminate and wondering about a snack.

But the new LBHQ is a better fit. It’s an older house in a quiet neighborhood near the kids’ school, with a large, cedar-enclosed back yard plus a capacious deck—the perfect place to pound a case of beer or prance around in a thong audience-free. My dad is really excited about the deck.

Still, the (nice) neighbors very pointedly asked yesterday what we were doing. Why hadn’t my parents mentioned our upcoming change of digs?

We do like these neighbors. We plan to keep in touch with them. But sheer childish perversity prevented my mother from enlightening them. Presumably they were wondering when and if we could have possibly sold the current LBHQ with its astonishing mess and lack of realtor staging—its lack of a realtor, in fact. If anything, this just demonstrates the fishbowl aspect of townhouse living. Everyone, no matter how nice, is in your business.

Scary liked having a BBQ, but he likes having secret satellite more.

But my parents have a secretive side. (For years they’ve concealed inside a gutted barbecue a forbidden satellite dish, through the cover of which our favorite shows happily penetrate. If anyone wonders why we don’t barbecue anything, that’s why, people. We’ve derived inordinate delight from pulling the BBQ cover over the Strata Council’s eyes all these years, although occasionally my dad wishes he could have a steak.) My parents grew up in a time when people didn’t talk about money and pay scales and what your house sold for in the shitty market du jour.

Fact is, my parents haven’t done anything with the townhouse yet. But they’re moving, and once they’ve moved, they’ll sort it out. That’s what they told me, at least. Far easier to tidy up a house when the kids aren’t living in it. Easier than impossible, that is.

So the packing starts this week. Books first, then second-string kitchen crap. Who knows, maybe we’ll actually junk some of it this time.

Watching my parents mobilize for the move is exciting. Not just because we’ll be in novel surroundings, but because when people move, they buy beer. They buy cases of it. And then they buy pizza, which makes them thirsty for more beer. And that makes moving awesome.

As long as nobody buys another Premium Pack from Lighthouse Brewing. OMG, I can’t tell you what a slog it’s been getting through it. When my mum declared it undrinkable, my dad and I had to step up and finish it, otherwise we couldn’t create the fridge vacuum that nature would abhor. Seriously, if my dad and I didn’t finish those Lighthouse beers, we’d never be able to buy more beer!

The most tolerable of the lot was FISGARD 150 BAVARIAN LAGER. Straw-colored and fizzy, it offers a basic aroma profile—grass, corn, and leafy hops—with an exception: that persistent, cloying overripe fruit note that predominates in its three Premium Pack casemates. Only the note is much subtler in FISGARD 150.

On the palate the lager is mild with some background orchardiness and a slightly sour endnote. Even when ice-cold, FISGARD 150 somehow doesn’t achieve refreshment; it tastes uncharacteristically musty for a lager, while noncommittally fruity. It’s a weird-tasting beer, but the weird taste doesn’t redeem it in any way. There’s nothing entertaining about an odd compost odor lurking in, of all things, a Bavarian lager.

So this one’s off our list for the move.