waagnfnp

Forget the caffe latte, screw the raspberry iced tea
A Malibu and Coke for you, a G&T for me
Alcohol, Your songs resolve like
my life never will
When someone else is picking up the bill I love you more than I did the week before
I discovered alcohol
O Alcohol, would you please forgive me?
For while I cannot love myself
I’ll use something else

–”Alcohol,” Barenaked Ladies

If you take a molecule of the simplest hydrocarbon, methane, remove one of its four hydrogen atoms and replace it with a hydroxyl group (-OH), you get methanol, the simplest alcohol. The hydrogen at the end of the hydroxyl is more “labile” than the others, so it’s relatively easy for methanol to lose it. That leaves the oxygen with a very friendly bond dangling, and it likes to hook up with its nearby carbon buddy,
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I won the raffle at a party thrown by a job agency a while back, and one of the prizes was a gift certificate from Starbucks. I don’t drink coffee; a single glass of Coke at dinner is enough to move my sleep time back an hour or more. But Starbucks sells other stuff, so I had a cup of hot chocolate and bought the Dylan No Direction Home CD.

The PBS special on Dylan was directed by Scorsese, and covered Dylan’s career up to the point where he had his motorcycle accident. It feels important, somehow, that Dylan survived the accident, that he didn’t follow the “good career move” that got so many of the other 60s icons. Dylan was always the Trickster, so it also feels appropriate, and besides, living is better than dying. I don’t care how many mediocre albums he’s made since then, how many unmemorable songs. He’s alive; good for him.

One of the things that was very obvious, and left very unmentioned, in No Direction Home was how thoroughly ripped he was for much of the time.
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Well, the Bulls choked game six away yesterday in horrible fashion, the same day the Cubs’ bullpen coughed up the lead for the third time on a seven-game road-trip. The Warriors are already out. Only JP likes LeBron. {Note from the MOJ - I haven’t been following LeBron closely enough to know if he’s been being a pill lately or not, so no official WAAGNFNP opinion on LeBron at this time.} And the A’s are just at .500. {Waaaaahhhh! - MOJ.} So, what to do? What to blog about this weekend?

Well, if Street Sense wins the Preakness this weekend, we will have live blogging for the Belmont (which will surely derail all Triple Crown hopes). But that’s a few weeks away, and only if Street Sense wins the Preakness.

For something to do, drinking comes to mind. Followed by the inevitable hangover. So let’s all share our most embarrassing stories about hangovers, and flashbacks, and come-downs on this blog. {Please enjoy the following highly amusing Family Guy bit where Brian and Stewie are in an Amsterdam cafe and get a “contact high”! -MOJ}

Maybe you’re under 21. Or you are a teetotaler (you think I fashioned this whole post only so I could use that word? Maybe.) Then you have another choice: talk about the NCAA Softball regionals. Not only is Northwestern really good (ahem), it’s also a very interesting sport. No-hitters galore! Eileen Canney had 28 strikeouts in an 18 inning complete game in 2006.)

Or, talk about anything that comes to mind, even the LPGA - it’s an open thread, after all. Anyway, I’m off for some field studies regarding the first topic. Giving my sanity to science, as it were.

[Update: Thanks to JP for his topic-inspiring comment here. I know drunk/high stories are a little heavy on the intellectual side for a weekend Open Thread, but hey, we gotta stop fooling around and get serious every now and then, right? -MOJ]