#oneaday Day 43: Regrets, But Not Why You Think

I had a few drinks this evening, and I am now feeling regrets. Not because I’ve drunk too much or are smashed off my face or anything, but because it just felt like a big waste of time, and it’s a whole lot of “bad stuff” that probably won’t help the weight loss.

I’ve been feeling a curious… absence of anything any time I’ve tried drinking in the last few years. The most I feel is getting a bit hot and flushed after a couple of whatevers, but I can’t remember the last time I felt genuinely merry, tipsy or drunk.

On balance, this is probably a good thing, because being drunk tends to lead to doing and/or saying stupid things, but it’s also a bit of a shame that drinking appears to have become an activity that I derive no joy from whatsoever, whereas back in my student days it was inevitably a central part of social occasions, and I have plenty of stories involving drunken nights out.

I attribute this to a few things. Firstly, I’m not getting any younger, though I know age doesn’t necessarily preclude anyone from enjoying a drink or two to the degree that they feel they’re affecting them. Secondly, I haven’t been really fucking drunk for… probably at least ten years at this point, possibly more. I would have thought that would make my tolerance drop to rock bottom, but as noted above, I just feel… nothing, really.

Probably the most significant reason that I derive no joy from drinking is because I’ve seen what overreliance on alcohol can do to a person and the people around them, on more than one occasion. Thankfully all the people I have known with such a problem are all comfortably recovering now, but I still can’t help but be reminded of the things I saw and heard when things were really bad.

In fact, I’d probably go so far as to say that I’m probably traumatised by such things. I hasten to add that nothing irreversibly bad happened to or was done to me by or as a result of the person who had the problem, but I will say that you should never assume the person directly suffering with alcohol-related issues is the only one who needs support. I went through some rather dark times of my own, and I suspect residual feelings towards those dark times have resulted in me drawing no joy from alcohol today.

As I say, it’s a bit of a shame, because I always used to enjoy a boozy night out with friends, and indeed there are almost certainly entries in the depths of this blog’s archives that outline exactly how and why I enjoyed such occasions. But for any and/or all of the reasons outlined above — plus the fact I rarely see “friends” in general at all these days, particularly post-COVID — that’s just not something that is anywhere even vaguely near the top of my priority list these days.

Every time I’ve had a drink or two in the last few years, I’ve felt something like this. So I think it might just be time to say that enough is enough, I don’t need or want alcohol in my life, and leave it at that. I guess that part of my life is passed.

Which, as I say, is probably a good thing, on balance.

Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.

1329: Day After

It was the wedding of my good friend James to his good wife Charlotte yesterday — an event which, apparently, had been a very long time coming. (I’ve only known James for a relatively short period of time and only met Charlotte once or twice, so it felt like a perfectly reasonable amount of time to me, but judging by the jokes in the speeches, it was, as I say, apparently a long time coming.)

In stark contrast to my friends George and Mitu’s wedding the other week, which was a vibrant, multicultural affair that must have cost a fucking fortune to put on, James and Charlotte’s wedding was a much more traditional British affair: church service, followed by retiring to a stately home for afternoon tea (including an astonishing variety of finger sandwiches and cakes), barn-dancing, a selection of meats (beef, lamb and pork — with crackling) and, of course, various types of booze on tap.

I must confess to having had a little too much to drink yesterday. I don’t drink a lot these days, you see — Andie doesn’t drink, and I normally join her on that, since the last few times I’ve drunk I haven’t really enjoyed it all that much, and I don’t tend to “go out” to occasions that involve imbibing vast quantities of alcohol very often, either. As such, my tolerance is considerably less than it was when I was at university and drinking fairly heavily on a regular basis. This makes me a cheap date, of course, but also means that I have to be somewhat… careful, particularly when strong drinks are involved.

The reception began with some Pimm’s, which was flowing pretty freely and getting regularly topped up by some ninja waiters and waitresses — the moment your glass was less than half-full, someone would appear as if from nowhere with a jug and refill it. Pimm’s is delicious, too, of course, and so it’s perfectly natural to just keep drinking it if it keeps coming.

Then there was champagne during the toasts and speeches. I’m not all that fond of champagne these days, to be honest — not that fond of wine in general, in fact. I had a bit of a “wine phase” at one point, but have since gone off it somewhat so I was rather underwhelmed by the champagne, even though I can probably safely assume — judging by the rest of the day, anyway — that it was probably quite expensive.

Later in the evening came the real killer, though — there were two different types of scrumpy, one of which just looked like orange squash, and the other of which was called “Bee Sting” and looked a bit like elderflower cordial. I tried some of the latter and it’s some of the nicest scrumpy I’ve ever tasted — very sweet, not at all “alcoholic-tasting” — but by golly it had a kick and a half, and you didn’t really notice until it was too late. In my case, it was looking up at the stars outside the venue and staggering unsteadily around that made me realise that yes, I was, in fact, a bit pissed. Not overly so — certainly not enough to make me want to take to the dance floor or do anything particularly outrageous — but enough to affect my balance somewhat. I felt all right, though.

That is, until about 2:30 in the morning, when I woke up to an unpleasant feeling and an accompanying mental image of an army advancing on my position. As the army got closer, I started to feel worse, and attempting to distract myself from the encroaching horde only made me pay more attention to it. Eventually, as the sound of marching boots was bearing down on me and mental pikemen started clashing with mental knights, I felt that there was only one real explanation for the battlefield in my head and stomach, and there was probably also only going to be one resolution to, it, too.

I was correct. Afterwards, however, I felt considerably better and have remained pleasantly hangover-free, too. Which is nice.

1225: Red Wizard Needs Z’s Badly

I’m exhausted. I’m not quite sure why I feel so utterly exhausted because I slept well last night and today hasn’t exactly been a particularly strenuous day. We played a couple of short games this morning before departing the pleasant country farmhouse we’d been staying in over the weekend, drove back, then, presumably, did our respective “Things” once we got home rather than immediately falling into a coma like I feel like doing right now.

The only thing I can possibly attribute it to is the two gin and tonics I had last night. I don’t really drink any more so even a tiny bit of alcohol tends to have quite a strong impact on me — disappointingly, this doesn’t tend to take the form of getting amusingly giggly or wobbly any more; rather, it tends to just make me a bit tired, particularly the day after I’ve been drinking. I guess what I’m enduring is a sort of hangover, albeit a rather pathetic one that will be immensely disappointing to those who used to enjoy past drunken (and post-drunken) ramblings.

The other thing it could be, of course, is the fact that we stayed up until about 2 in the morning playing various combinations of board, card and computer games, then tumbled into bed (not together) before waking up relatively early (for a bank holiday Monday, anyway) today.

Either way, it’s not a particularly good show, is it? I vividly remember the days when I’d happily stay up all night just for the hell of it (and regret it for the majority of the following day, particularly if there were any university lectures involved) and consume several gallons of alcoholic beverages before texting people I fancied messages with lots of X’s on the end of them (the number of X’s was typically proportional to how much I fancied them) and collapsing into bed, quite possibly fully-clothed.

Depressingly, the time when I was able to behave like that on a regular basis was over ten years ago now. Longtime readers will doubtless note that the posts I linked to above were from relatively early in this whole #oneaday lark, but they were isolated incidents rather than something I was doing on a regular basis.

Actually, I say “depressingly”, but I don’t really feel the need to stay up until ungodly hours in the morning and stagger in as pissed as a fart on a regular basis. At the tender age of 32, I’m more than happy to spend my evening lounging on the sofa watching some entertaining videos or playing a game. It doesn’t stop me from indulging in a late night once in a while, of course — apparently I just have to be prepared to deal with the consequences the following day!

Now I am going to go to bed and possibly sleep for about a thousand years. (Note: It will probably not be about a thousand years. Probably more like 8 hours or so, I imagine.) Good night, and hopefully I’ll have a more lively brain that is willing to talk about something a bit more interesting on the morrow.

#oneaday Day 964: Where Everybody Knows Your Name

As someone who suffers from social anxiety, I’ve never really been one to just “go out” unless I had a very good reason, usually in the form of some friends asking me to join them. (I have, of course, tried going out by myself a few times in the past, but as chronicled in this post, it rarely ended well.)

As such, I’ve never really had somewhere that I could call “my local” with any confidence, there’s nowhere that I could accurately describe myself as a “regular” of. I’m not really bemoaning this fact — I have plenty of better things to do than sit in the pub — but it’s an aspect of life that I feel may have passed me by somewhat.

It was a little different back when I was at university, of course. We regularly frequented a wide variety of places that could quite politely be described as “dives”, but all of them had their own unique charms.

In the first year, there was Chamberlain Bar, which was the “local” for a group of several university halls of residence in the area. It wasn’t a particularly exciting bar, bearing a closer resemblance to the sort of half-hearted establishment that exists to make a few extra pennies for a community recreation centre than a jumpin’ nightspot, but it was “home” for a while. It was where most of us discovered the “Juicy Lucy” (pint glass, vodka, blue curaçao or however you spell it, double shot of Taboo, topped up with equal amounts orange juice and lemonade) and the “Passion Wagon”, officially the laziest cocktail of all time (shot of Passoa with a bottle of Reef emptied into it). It also had a tendency to throw crap events — our flat were the only attendees to dress up for “Seventies Night” and a Hawaiian-themed evening consisted of them turning the heating up full and serving nothing but the aforementioned Passion Wagons all night.

Southampton had one big club at the time when I was studying at the university. I’m not sure what it’s called now, but it used to be called Ikon and Diva, as it was one of those weird places that was split into two separate mini-clubs inside. It was shit. It was the sort of place that you went after you got really drunk and consequently barely remember anything from. Consequently, I barely remember anything about this place save for the fact I was clearly so impressed by it that I never went there ever again after my first visit.

There were plenty of smaller clubs, though. One that springs immediately to mind was New York’s, which has been closed and derelict for several years now. It was also shit, and like Ikon and Diva, it was the sort of place you only went to when absolutely off your tits. I only have random flashes of memories of the one (I think) time I went to New York’s, but I vividly recall looking down from a balcony to a stage-like area below, where a bunch of drunk men and women were stripping because the DJ had asked them to. Sure, I got to see tits, but even in my horrendously intoxicated state, I found the complete lack of human dignity on display to be more obnoxious than titillating. Consequently, I never went back there, either.

Then there was Lennon’s, which I think is probably home to most of my best “going out” memories, perhaps largely because it’s the place that several of us tended to frequent most often. I’m not entirely sure why this was, as Lennon’s was a fairly bare-bones club, being essentially a moderately-sized wooden room with a bar on one side and a DJ on the other, occasionally accompanied by a nice man named Vince who sold chips. They played good music, though, and often played host to live bands. I even performed there myself on a couple of occasions, with our university band the Coconut Scratch Orchestra discovering the folly of leaving drumbeats up to a backing track rather than a live drummer. (We all swore after that to never, ever play Mission: Impossible again.) It was also nice in that it was not frequented by the sort of waxed-chest, greasy-haired chav that frequented places like Ikon and Diva.

Would I describe myself as a “regular” at any of those places, though? No, probably not. I see a “regular” as someone who knows the bar staff by name and is recognised by bouncers; someone who meets friends there without having to make prior arrangements; someone who sees it as a “home away from home” — a place to socialise, hang out and just relax. I never quite saw it that way — it was always fun to go to Lennon’s, sure, particularly if my friend had enough to drink to get to the stage where he thought kebabs made him literally invincible, but it was never a place that I felt like I was a “part of”.

I’m not really sure if I’ve “missed out” on something by not having that kind of experience. I guess I have another chance when I hit, what, 50 years of age and start liking real ales or something?

#oneaday Day 622: Party Smart

I may be voluntarily indicting myself into the “I am an old man now” club but I have come to the irrefutable conclusion that You Do Not Need Alcohol to Have a Good Time.

Well, duh, you might say. We’ve been told that for years. But how many people really believe it?

I’m speaking purely from my own perspective here as I’m more than aware that plenty of people use booze as a form of social lubricant prior to slipping their conversational penis into the Vagina of Meaningful Interactions. I’m saying it doesn’t really work for me.

I thought it did for a while. At University, as most people tend to do, I drank a lot, mostly out of a desire to be sociable and fit in — even with seeing a close friend suffer from (and, thankfully, subsequently beat) a drinking problem. I quickly confirmed my early suspicions that I didn’t like beer at all, which precluded me from most Student Night promotions, and instead opted for spirits or alcopops.

Even with those, however, I found I had an obvious “line” which, if crossed, would switch the night from being “entertainingly blurry” to “unpleasantly blurry”. Sometimes I crossed this line by accident with just one sip too many; others I was goaded and cajoled into it by the company I was with at the time; others still I, like a child in some ways, wanted to “test my limits”. The result was always the same, however; a kebab on the way home, a longer-than-average dump during which I’d often almost-but-not-quite fall asleep, a night of disturbed sleep wondering whether or not I’d be sick (to which the answer was usually “yes”) followed by a morning of being sick, barely being able to move and always taking a bin into the bathroom with me in case disaster struck while I was the wrong way around to puke in a manner which didn’t require cleaning up.

Despite the inevitability of the above scenario, I still continued to do it. Drinks of choice changed — vodka and Red Bull being a favourite for probably the longest, despite its ludicrous cost — but the presence of social occasions did not. Drinks down the pub after a session with a club. Monday nights at the local grotty nightclub following Theatre Club rehearsals. And, of course, the occasional house party.

I used to hate house parties, but I’d still go. Most of them tended to devolve into me finding my “line”, stopping just short of it and then spending the rest of the evening looking longingly across the room at some girl I’d arbitrarily decided that night that I fancied, and then didn’t go and talk to for fear of her thinking I was a dick, a perv or quite simply just someone she didn’t want to talk to.

In short, then, in a good 8-9 cases out of 10, alcohol didn’t particularly work as the social lubricant it’s sold as. A few half-hearted “woo, I’m so drunk!”s do not make for meaningful friendships and relationships, and as such I’m pretty sure that most of my aforementioned meaningful relationships and friendships started and were best cultivated when sober. Sure, there were times when I’d gone out, got drunk and had a great time with said people — but as time passed, these got less and less frequent, and the booze became less and less important.

When I finally left university and started work as a teacher, the demands of the job meant that for the most part I didn’t have time to drink, let alone the inclination. I dabbled with having a stiff G&T upon coming home from the first school in which I worked — which was a nightmarish shithole conjured up from between Satan’s very buttocks — but it didn’t particularly help with the growing feelings of stress and depression I had, and nor was I expecting it to. I had an occasional G&T because it was a nice drink in the summer, and it happened to be one of the few alcoholic beverages which I didn’t hate the taste of.

Fast forward to now and I haven’t drunk for quite some time, and I don’t miss it. The last few times I drank wine or vodka or gin, the taste was not something I enjoyed, and it felt like it “burned” on the way down, leaving me with a slight lingering feeling of unpleasantness after just one sip in many cases. Certainly it was enough to put me off a university-style binge, but it’s also pretty much enough to put me off it altogether. It’s unnecessary for me, it doesn’t particularly help me open up to people — though it does help me act like a dick, but then, I’m in no hurry to be the butt of everyone’s jokes for being wasted — and, in more cases than one, I’ve seen what it can do to people, and that’s not pleasant.

In short, then, I think I’m knocking it on the head. This isn’t a strict teetotal policy or anything but I’m certainly not going to seek out alcohol or feel pressured into it on social occasions.

I’ve been away this weekend and heard the phrases “you need to be drunk” or “you need to drink more” uttered several times. No you don’t. Or, more accurately, Idon’t. No-one needs to be drunk. No-one needs to drink “more”. You should be free to enjoy a drink if you enjoy it, but it should not be a necessity.

If this has come across as in any way sanctimonious, that certainly wasn’t the intention and I apologise — I’m simply saying how I feel about it and what works for me in this instance. I’m certainly not judging those who do enjoy a drink and know their limits — and equally, I’m not judging those who have a genuine problem and are taking steps to deal with it. Everyone’s different, after all. All I’m saying is this: if you’re socialising with me or at a party I’m throwing (haha, yeah, right) then have a drink or two by all means — just don’t expect (or, worse, demand) than I join you.

And don’t throw up on my carpet.

#oneaday Day 91: Boozehound

It’s a curious thing, alcohol. Some people enjoy it, others don’t. One thing we seem to be afflicted with a bit in this country is the assumption that alcohol is somehow necessary to have a good time, like it unlocks a magical gateway to some nether realm of ultimate happiness.

But does it, though? It certainly lowers inhibitions and makes people more open to the idea of acting like a dickhead — and, by extension, amusing everyone else. This certainly leads to lots of memorable evenings — it occurred to me last time I was out with a bunch of people that a lot of stories start with “there was this time we were all really drunk” and end with someone being sick or falling over or hurting themselves.

Good nights don’t necessarily need alcohol to be good. You just need something to happen to be memorable. This depends a lot on the chemistry between the people you’re with. With the right people, you can have a thoroughly silly night without the need to get a sick bucket afterwards.

The people I was out with tonight are some of my oldest friends; people I’ve known since high school. While our nights out often involve a bit of drinking, we certainly don’t need drinks to act like dicks and yell “COCK” at each other.

Which is, you know, nice.

I have a lovely weekend ahead of me so I will say goodnight for now. Stay frosty.

#oneaday, Day 111: Post-Mortem

Good morning! Lovely day, isn’t it? Who am I kidding? It’s grey and miserable outside and I woke up at midday. Rather than just lying there stewing in my own self-pity and the stench of a night out, though, I decided to get out into the fresh air and locate some decent coffee before I melted into a puddle of apathy on the floor. Now I’m back and not actually feeling too bad.

After any drunken night out, it’s always wise to take stock of anything stupid you may have done in order to prepare yourself for any potential repercussions. As technology has advanced, the number of ways in which one can humiliate oneself has exponentially increased. Pre-mobile phones, you could just make a twat of yourself in person. Then there were phone calls. Then there were text messages, emails, tweets, Facebook, blogs and all manner of other media with which to do something dumb. Fortunately, the evidence seems to suggest that I only used a few of these last night. This was largely due to the fact my iPhone battery ran out partway through the evening thanks to us all playing with the Omegle app in the pub before moving on to nightclub “Unit”, where ChatRoulette was playing on a big screen, cocks and all.

So, let’s look at the statistics, then.:

Friends getting lost: 1
Friends unable to open their own front door because they were turning their key the wrong way: 1 (the same person)

Phone calls made: 0
Phone calls received: 2 (from the above person)

Voicemails left: 0
Voicemails received: 1 (from the above person)

Text messages sent: 18
Text messages received: 11
Text messages sent to people I shouldn’t have: 0 (whew)
Text messages I regret sending: 0 (double whew)
Text messages along the lines of “I LUV U UR SO AWESOME LOL”: 4
Text messages containing spelling errors: 17
Text messages containing perfect spelling: 1
Text messages containing errant punctuation: 1
Inadvertent mentions of sadistic/masochistic sexual practices: 1

Tweets tweeted: 13
@replies: 1
Mentions of friends trying to kill me: 1
Aspersions cast on friends’ respective sexualities: 2
Aspersions cast on friends’ respective sexualities based on their taste in music: 1
Twitpics/yFrogs: 3
Tweets containing the same picture inadvertently posted twice: 1
Tweets containing hand-drawn “artist’s impressions”: 1
BAP!s: 1
Tweets in ALL CAPS: 0.75
Tweets attempting to quote Annie Lennox songs and failing: 1
Tweets using the hashtag #drunk: 2
Perfectly spelled tweets: 2
Unnecessary requests for readers to fuck off: 1

Blogs posted: 1
Spelling errors in blog: 0
Blog lucidity: 95%
Mentions of men masturbating on webcams being horrifying and compelling at the same time: 1

Not bad. Could be worse. Let’s see a few highlights then, shall we? I hasten to add, these are all ones I sent, not received. Let’s start with some text messages:

Typical post-drunken “THANK YOU FOR AN AWESOME NIGHT!” text. Note the time. I’m impressed I managed to somehow insert a web address and misspell my own name. And what “sebsexbexsusecim” means is anyone’s guess. It’s probably not what you think. Let’s do itcagsin sometime.

The top message covers several of the above bases. We have the “I LUV U UR AWESOME” (“I need to ve ariuvs awesome people and you are awesome. :)”). We have errant punctuation (“..23@@”) and a whole lot of misspelled words. Then underneath we have a beautifully lucid one, proving that the nonsense was more a product of typing too hastily rather than complete spastication. Also, watch out or o can come koj you.

I wasn’t aware my mam was there. Nor do I remember any S&M going on. But it’s all right, because I apologies forcant errors. Note that I appeared to have given up attempting to type “Pete” by this point.

Here are the tweets. I think I can let them speak for themselves. Click for a close-up and read from bottom to top.

And I’ll leave you with my “artist’s impression” of ChatRoulette, drawn using Brushes for iPhone while this very situation was unfolding on the big screen a few metres away from us:

NEXT! NEXT! OH MY GOD! CLICK THE NEXT BUTTON! QUICK!

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#oneaday, Day 110: Hic!

It’s nearly 4am and I’m pissed as a fart. This is officially the first #oneaday I’ve done while under the influence of any sort of substance, so I apologise in advance for any typos or nonsense I am about to produce. I have already tweeted a whole load of shit, so if you’re really into the idea of reading drunken bullshit, I suggest you follow me on Twitter.

I went out tonight. I was meeting up with some friends I used to work with and have really been missing recently. Some of them know the details of what has been going on in my personal life recently, others don’t. (Incidentally, if you’re reading this right now and don’t know the details, I’m not quite ready to make it completely public just yet. Give it time.) The best thing about this evening is that my friends know how to have a good time with the minimum of fuss. There were no difficult conversations required, no prerequisites for the fun we were going to have, just an inordinately large amount of alcohol, some frankly fatal-sounding concoctions that I’m almost certain I’m going to regret in a few hours’ time and an awful lot of homoerotic dancing.

I apologise profusely to all my friends for fondling their nipples in a distinctly inappropriate manner, but none of you seemed to mind at the time.

Friends are great. I encourage you all to get some. As in some you can go out and see on a regular basis. I absolutely love my online friends and trust them absolutely, but sometimes there is no substitute for being in the same physical place as other people, letting your hair down and acting like a complete twat. There’s nothing I’d love more than to do the same with all the members of the Squadron of Shame. One day, perhaps. But for now, a huge shout-out to @dollydaydream, @kslice47, @HarmlessSaucer and @lukejhall for an enormously fun night out involving considerable amounts of drinking and watching ChatRoulette on a big screen.

Seriously, guys, what sort of person are you if you’re quite happy to go onto a webcam site and masturbate in front of someone you don’t know? Disturbing, but horribly, horribly compelling.

One A Day, Day 31: Out of Sync

I should probably start writing these things in the middle of the day, as my timings are getting all out of sync. Yesterday’s post ended up being dated today, largely because it was written at about 3 in the morning. I was also a little sozzled on gin, so I apologise if it wasn’t the most coherent rant in the world.

I wasn’t drinking alone, I might add. I’d spent the evening over at my buddy’s house having a curry, playing some board games and drinking the aforementioned gin. We discovered gin a week or two back and decided that it was, for now at least, our tipple of choice thanks to how easily it went down, particularly when accompanied by some ice, tonic and lemon. It’s a lovely summer drink, too. Not that it’s particularly summery right now, though the sun did come out for a bit today.

I was a heavy drinker back in university – weren’t we all? – but over the years my tolerance for alcohol seems to have dropped quite a bit. I have vivid memories of many bizarre nights at the university bar accompanied by luridly-coloured cocktails and obscene creations involving unholy combinations of absinthe and Baileys (actually not as bad as it sounds… though your liver might disagree). We also had one particularly amusing and unpleasant night where we decided to invent our own cocktails… or at least attempt to. They weren’t terribly successful, with the most memorable one of the evening being one we dubbed “The Brown Sauce”, so named because of its resemblance in taste to HP sauce. No drink should taste of HP sauce.

Then there was the university orchestra’s trip to Poland, land of super-cheap drinks. One bar did this thing called (if I remember correctly) a “six-shooter”, which was exactly what it sounds like – six shots of some bright blue shit for about a pound. More cocktails were invented there, too.

Nowadays, drinking’s a relatively rare indulgence for me. Drinking the amount of gin we did last night is something that none of us involved have done for a while (at least not all together). It was fun, and it made my pathetic losses at both Agricola and Ticket to Ride matter rather less. Of course, at roughly 4am I found myself regretting quite how much I had drunk, but at least I was mercifully hangover-free in the morning.

Hmm, that totally wasn’t where I was intending this post to head. Oh well. It’s late and I’m actually sitting in bed right now, so maybe I’ll save something more coherent for tomorrow when I’m a bit more awake.

For now – good night!

One A Day, Day 13: Round Midnight

Yes, I’m aware it’s after midnight. But the official One A Day rules clearly state (somewhere… possibly not on that page, but I can’t be bothered to look it up right now) that the “day” is from when you get up until when you go to bed. And I’m not in bed yet. So there.

It is, however, late, so this entry is going to be somewhat phoned in. Fortunately, there’s not a great deal to talk about today. Got up, played some Mass Effect in preparation for the sequel, played some Star Trek Online (which the official Head Start has now begun for) and went to my buddy Sam’s for some board games, Chinese and booze. We played Power Grid. I lost. Then we played Carcassonne, and I also lost. Still, never mind. It’s the taking part that counts, and all that.

We did rediscover the wonder of gin and tonic though. In recent years, I’ve found that a lot of booze leaves me with an unpleasant feeling of heartburn very quickly, meaning I can’t drink much of a lot of things and when I do, I don’t enjoy them that much. The G&Ts we had tonight went down rather too smoothly if anything, and made the already-lengthy game of Power Grid last even longer than usual. That’s no bad thing, though, since it’s a fun game that taxes your brain.

Tomorrow I may be taking a trip with Sam to take some photos. Haven’t got my camera out to take some proper photos for ages, so if we do go it’ll be good to get back into it. Interesting ones will, of course, be shared here.

Right. Now it’s time for bed. G’nite.