Astute readers may have noticed that I drink beer from time to time.

Very astute readers may have noticed that I will sometimes put little beer reviews in my journal entries.

Psycho stalkers have probably noticed that all of my beer reviews also appear over here. If you don't believe me, go there now and see for yourself.

I'll wait.

* looks at watch, taps foot, whistles, considers masturbating, balances checking account *

Okay, that's long enough. You were just supposed to look. Not memorize the thing.

There are, as of this writing, 301 entries there. I had planned to make entry number 300 a special one, but it didn't work out that way. I screwed it up last night by trying two new beers. So now I'm at 301 instead of 299, and the special review that I'd wanted to be number 300 will be number 302 instead.

What I did is I combined two of my all-time favorite beers. I am a fucking genius.

Dave's Weffentremens (28)

(mixture) I mixed Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier and Delirium Tremens in the 16.9:11.2 ratio dictated to me by the bottle sizes. Mixing what are perhaps the ultimate representations of German wheat and Belgian strong ales, I'm not quite sure what I was expecting to accomplish. One thing that I definitely wasn't expecting was to create a beer that would make me believe in God. Well, so much for expectations. Way beyond yummy.

Like I said, I am a fucking genius.

In this entry I will, once again, try to be funny in such a way that only one person on Earth will get the joke. But that's okay, because she's the most important person.

But first thing first. After work this week, on two occasions, I had this beer:

Regenboog Guido (20)

(draft) Very good. Cloudy brown color, little head to speak of. Taste of apples that have almost gone sour. There were a couple of other, more subtle flavors. Maybe raisins and honey. I wanted more right away.

Okay.

Last night I got to Rich O's fairly late for me - about 9:30 or so. Before I'd even left my truck I could tell that something special was happening. It was like a tingle that went down my spine. Except it wasn't my spine.

The place was full of hot girls!

By Rich O's standards, anyway. There were at least a half-dozen of girls in various states of hotness scattered around. One in particular, with dreadlocked hair, really got my attention when our eyes met as I walked in. She smiled at me from her seat at the island, and I ended up walking kinda funny to the bar.

My first beer of the night was one of these:

t Smisje Blond (10)

(draft) Cloudy dark urine in appearance. No head to speak of. A very citrusy aroma, but the flavor was quite similar to a German wheat except for the thinner mouthfeel. A decent beer.

After a few minutes the strangers at the other end of the bar left so I slid down there and sent some come hither glances in RastaGirl's direction, but all she would do in response was give me a little smile. So maybe she's shy. Yeah, that must be it.

My second beer was one of these:

Dogfish Head Pumpkin Ale (10)

(draft) Clear bronze. A thin tan head that faded quickly and left nice lacing behind. Besides the unusual (for me) pumpkin flavor, there was a strange bitterness that came and went before the finish. Once my tastebuds had become numb to the bitterness this was a pretty good beer.

For the better part of an hour I just sat at the bar with the ghost and drank my beer. Then some fuckers left the living room so I moved over to the throne.

Right after I sat down another hot girl came in with some gay guy and they sat in the loveseat. I didn't talk to them though because by that time I was in a bit of a mood.

My next beer was one of the aforementioned Guido beers (30).

I spent a lot of my time on the throne trading text messages with RockGirl. LonerBoy came in and sat with me for a while but we didn't talk much.

Then RockGirl told me to grow a pair, so I did, and I went home.

You can find ghosts in the most obscure places.

Especially when you're looking for them.

Last night was, as I wrote yesterday, the occasion of the thing in the place with the people. It was supposed to be a surprise, so I didn't say anything more than that. Well the surprise is over so I have free reign I suppose.

The thing was a comedy show, the place was The Comedy Caravan in Louisville, and the people were my friend Eric, his wife Teri, my sister Dina, her husband Kenny, Eric's brother Todd and his wife, and some people I don't really know - except that one of them may be Dina's only hot friend. The whole deal was because it's Teri's birthday today. Happy Birthday!

I'm pretty sure that it's also my grandmother's birthday today. Happy Birthday!

The show didn't start until 8:00, and I got there early, so I walked across the street to a little bar. A little haunted bar as it turned out. I hadn't recognized the place, but I'd been there before, back near the beginning of the end. Back when I broke through the clouds and caught a glimpse of just how far up I was. How far I had to fall.

Anyway, I had myself a yummy Newcastle (2506) and did a bit of catching up with the ghost of my own innocence. Then I went back across the street to the comedy place. Dina and Kenny were already waiting, and everyone else showed up shortly afterwards.

I hadn't been to the Comedy Caravan since this night, even nearer to the end. I don't suppose things have changed very much. Some of the people were funny, and some of them weren't. I think the highlight of my time there was when I went out to the lobby to have a smoke and got to talk to Dina's hot friend for a while. Talking to pretty women always lifts my spirits. For a while at least.

Oh yeah, I had two bottles of BBC Alt (282) which were a little skunked. It was also very strange to be drinking straight out of the bottle.

After the show was over, I went over to Cumberland Brewing with Eric and Todd and their wives. I had myself a yummy Cumberland Nitro Porter (180) and we all just sat around and talked for a bit. Eric told me a very funny story about his dad, but I won't relay it here because you'd really have to know Paul to see how funny it was.

After my friend left, I moved up to the bar and had another Nitro Porter (200) and thought about the times I'd gone to that place with MixedSignalGirl and SassyGirl.

Speaking of SassyGirl, nobody has had any word from her and JauntyGirl since they left. So that sucks.

After I left Cumberland, I stopped by Rich O's for a second, then I went to White Castle and came home and watched the new X-Men movie.

Tonight, I get to go to a thing at a place with some people.

I'm looking forward to it, which means that I'll be disappointed.

I only turned my back for a second, and they all died. All of the hot girls, dead.

This party had suddenly taken a very bad turn.

What could I have been thinking? Rat poison is, by definition, poison, and who was I to say which small amount might be safe and which would not? Which would bring a nice high and which would bring death?

As I moved my hand over their bodies to check for any remaining signs of life, of hope, it was as if darkness flowed out from my fingers and onto everything around me. I could no longer see their faces. This might normally have been considered a good thing, what with them being dead and all. But this time, this time it was not. For as I reached to check for a pulse, I instead found the toothy grimace of agonizing death, seemingly about to bite down and rip at my flesh. Instead of the faintest of breaths, I instead found hands contorted by pain into claws that seemed to grasp at me, as if to pull me in with them.

But it was only my imagination. The dead do not bite. The dead do not grasp.

The darkness flowing from me continued to spread. The lamp in the corner served only to illuminate itself - its light no longer reached the walls, or the floor, or the ceiling. Or the grotesque scene on the bed.

I knew that I had to get away from there, from that macabre display, from the darkness.

So I ran.

I ran, and the darkness continued to flow from my body. It became an expanding wake of nothingness which I pulled along behind me.

I ran faster.

I ran as fast as my legs would carry me, but it was not fast enough. I bent forward, and I began to use my arms as well. I dug my fingers into the ground and I pulled with my arms as mightily as I pushed with my legs. I became something else. Something no longer human. A beast. Running from darkness that I myself had created, that I myself continued to spread.

A moment of clarity struck me.

I stopped.

The darkness caught up with me, surrounded me, enveloped me. It began to contract and flow back into me.

As I stood, panting, in that shrinking circle of darkness, I saw lights in the distance.

Then I woke up.

So after my sole reason for even being in the place left in an understandable huff, I left Rich O's myself and went out to the BBC or Bluegrass Brewery or whatever the fuck it's called. There are two of the places, and they used to be the same company but now they're not and nobody fucking cares because we all have enough drama in our lives without our bars getting into the act. Anyway, I went to the one way out in East Louisville because they have hot girls there.

I had two main reasons for going to the BBC - besides the hot girls. The first was the yummy BBC Alt (258) that I'd had at Rich O's. I'd actually ordered a BBC Dark Star Porter but oh well. The second reason was the yummy BBC Dark Star Porter I had at Rich O's (188). Both of these beers are among my favorites, and Rich O's only had them in bottled form. I wanted drafts. So I went.

It was, as usual, quite crowded there, but I found myself a seat at the bar and had myself a Dark Star (208).

Do any of you remember that one stalker guy that followed me from the BBC to Rich O's a while ago?

That same fucker was at the BBC again. I don't think he saw me though. Whew!

Next I was going to have a BBC Alt but they'd just blown the keg or something so instead I left and went to The Pub in downtown Louisville.

While I was there I had a couple pints of yummy Newcastle (2492) and I talked to some uberhot girls who were there for a bachelorette party. So that was fun until one of the girls asked me why I was in a bad mood and I said that men are insensitive pigs who only think about one thing and that started all of the girls agreeing with me a little too enthusiastically. Plus they wanted me to do shots with them and none of them were Holly so I declined. At one point I realized that I was surrounded by estrogen so I left the girls and went down the street to this Sully's place and had a Diet Coke.

Then I came home at around 1:30.

That's the subject of some SPAM I got today.

I have no idea what my zwinky might be, and I don't think I want to know.

Sadly, that was the highlight of my day. I did manage to kill one of the servers at work. I think that it was justifiable homicide, but I have to await final judgment from the jury of my coworkers. We'll see.

Other than those two things, that's it. I think my brain is empty.

I don't like to write entries when I'm pissed. I do it every now and then and I never like the way it reads.

I suppose that I'm not really pissed right now. Just irritated. But it's been going on for almost 24 hours now, and it shows no signs of abating, so maybe it'll grow into being pissed if I don't write about it.

Also, maybe two people will know what I'm talking about here. My sister has accused me of writing in code lately. She's admitted that, lately, all she does is skim my journal for anything resembling coherency and then turn away in disgust when she finds none.

But I digress.

I wonder, what the fuck were you thinking? Were you thinking at all? With your head?

The first time was slightly amusing. Akin to one of my comics perhaps. Juvenile and predictable yet harmless.

The next 8,000 times were overkill.

Guess what? She knows that she's hot. She knows it without needing to hear it from you over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over inside of about 15 minutes.

That's what her boyfriend is for. He gets to tell her that she's hot. Not you. Not me. Nobody except her boyfriend.

I really don't get what you were thinking you'd accomplish.

Was she supposed to say, "Well gee whiz! I never suspected that you thought I was pretty! Thank you so much for letting me know! I must have sex with you right now on the coffee table, you stallion!"

It was really a pitiful display you put on. To be ignored must not sit very well with you. Otherwise why would you choose to say the same thing over and over again? Isn't one of the signs of insanity to keep doing the same thing and expect differing results? Shouldn't you, of all people, know this?

This was the second time that your mouth ran someone I care about out of that place. You are on notice now. I will no longer wait for them to defend themselves, or for their boyfriends to defend them. Before there is a third time, I will defend them myself.

I think I must be weird or something. I think this because I realized yesterday afternoon that I actually like getting my teeth cleaned. I like the picking, and the scraping, and I even like the polish thingy.

Anyway, after my dentist appointment I took a nap, then at around 8:30 I went to Rich O's.

The place was completely packed with strangers and assholes, so I turned around and left immediately. I stood out in the parking lot and tried to decide what I should do. I could just go back home because I was pretty tired after all. I could go over to The Pub in Louisville and have some of their yummy Newcastle. I briefly considered then dismissed the idea of going to The BBC for some of their yummy porter.

In the end, all of those options seemed like too much trouble, plus my sister had told me that she might come to Rich O's, so I went back in.

For a while I just stood at the end of the bar and had Smithwick's (1172), then some strangers left the bar so I sat there and had another Smithwick's (1192).

I talked to no corporeal beings all night, even when people would come up to me I did my best to shoo them away. It was not a night for socializing.

My last two beers were in the form of bottled Newcastle (2452.) Both were absolutely yummy.

In retrospect, I should have just stayed home last night. The entire night was a waste. Even the ghost couldn't bring me out of my funk.