Last night, I did not go to Rich O's. I did not, in fact, go to any bar at all.

Weird, huh?

That's what I thought.

What I did was I went to a surprise birthday party for my friend Eric. Though I'm not sure how much of a surprise it was, what with all of the cars in the driveway. Maybe seeing all of those cars was the surprise.

First things first, though. I went to the liquor store. I was planning to pick up a six-pack of Weihehstephaner, but they were out. So instead I bought a six-pack of Upland Chocolate Stout, then came back home and constructed my own little party pack consisting of two bottles of the Upland (286), two bottles of Winterkoninkske Winter King (136), and two bottles of Weihenstephaner (701) that I'd forgotten were in my fridge.

Thusly armed, I went to the house of this dude that graduated with Eric for the party.

It was a nice quiet affair. We talked. We played some euchre. My brother-in-law Chris and I won about 800 games in a row I think.

I actually managed to drink all of the beer I'd brought with me. And I didn't die.

That's simply amazing to me, mostly because that Winterkoninkske is some pretty strong stuff.

One other thing that was nice was that my phone kept ringing. People wanted to know where I was, why I wasn't at Rich O's, when I was coming to Rich O's, how they were supposed to keep on living if I wasn't at Rich O's. I assured them all that I'd be there on Saturday night.

What I didn't tell them was that I have to work Sunday morning so I may not stay for very long.