Booze is a requirement at most Catholic events, at least in my experience.

My college had Friday night wine and cheese parties with the Jesuits.

I was raised by old school Methodists. This has been a hindrance in fully engaging in drinking culture

Being half-French with Polish grandparents on the other side, it's surprising I'm not a bigger drinker than I already am.

My sister in Sunday School!

Charles Wesley songs FTW!

Booze is a requirement at most Catholic events, at least in my experience.

Even though Methodists are now allowed to drink at home, I can't imagine them having booze at church events. When I was at a sanctuary dedication for a Unitarian Universalist congregation I was shocked when they hauled out the champagne to celebrate. Booze in the sanctuary! They also had Goddess stuff, Buddhist stuff, and discussions of the value of atheism in the same sanctuary, but that didn't shock me. Ah, early childhood conditioning.

My main experience with drinking on the job is from when I was a carpenter. In my first job, if the lead carpenter was having a bad day, we'd go get barbecue and he'd down a couple of Crown and Cokes. He was also a pathological liar and we all ended up getting laid off b/c he had a heart attack at 27 (small crew).

My second job, one of the carpenters hot boxed at lunch every day. Didn't seem to affect him, except that he giggled just slightly more.

But once in '95 I had a boss from Australia, who told us it was very common for folks down there to drink on their lunch break

yeah, I remember being in the pub one day to get a pizza (a short lived fad - Pizza Hut in the Pub) and seeing one of my bosses having a beer while he waited for his pizza. It freaked me out.

Being half-French with Polish grandparents on the other side, it's surprising I'm not a bigger drinker than I already am.

I am mostly French or Irish, drinking every day is the norm. But I don't.

Oh, Harold Ford is absolutely that bad. When he was challenging Pelosi for House leadership I was horrified. Even in the context of Tennessee he's barely a democrat, and he's a Lieberman type who won't hesitate to backstab his own party if he sees some room for gain.

But he's also, apparently, even more of a freaking moron than I had realized, so there's that.

Jesse, you don't even read Gawker?

That's where I just saw it! I have been out of every loop lately.

Lieberman

hate him so much hate hate.

I just got a hand-me-down iTouch and am catching up on Podcasts (My iPod has a hinky headphone connection) and I am just now hitting the Maddow shows on his vocal opposition to healthcare before the vote. such an ass.

I wouldn't do it, today (maybe), but in the bad old days of anything goes in the military, when I worked second shift (2-10pm) we would launch the planes and then hustle our asses down to the park where the beer was, drink our fill until we saw our planes in the landing pattern and then haul ass back up to the flight line to recover said planes and make any repairs necessary before retiring to the park for the evening with more beer. Topgun was a bunch of hard drinking SOBs.

Just remembered I wanted to share my bad dreams from last night with you all. The first was an epic battle with my dad, not sure over what, lots of screaming. The second, which actually woke me up (long enough to remember both dreams) was Michael Clarke Duncan physically threatening me in some situation where I was basically in captivity. I was followed closely if I left a building adn some event we were at, Duncan stood behind me with his hands around my neck. so not sleep helpful.