Ahoy, today be International Talk Like A Pirate Day!  Scrounge up an eyepatch, a parrot, and a wooden leg and pillage yer workplace for booty.  The type of booty is up to you, mateys.  Luckily I have some rum left over from the family's visit, so tonight it's all about the grog.

Cain't get too loaded to the gunwhales tonight, though.  Dratted school ( Read more... )

"Among these high consumers [of alcohol in the early nineteenth century] of long standing the oddest and often the saddest were the schoolmasters.  Although skilled and sometimes educated, teachers indulged themselves with liquor as zestfully as ignorant, unskilled laborers.  The profession, if it can be so dignified, attracted mainly misfits.  ( Read more... )

Yesterday began with a book on the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 and ended at a bar.  Same old story.  Wait, it actually ended at the sobriety-inducing Waffle House.  Wait, what?  The 14ish-year-old neice of one of my school chums, who has a recording contract of some kind in Nashville, was performing at a country bar near campus and a whole mess of ( Read more... )

Spent all day working on a paper.  Will spend all day tomorrow working on a paper and reading.  Will spend all of the next day reading and, just for a change, maybe working on a paper.  Does anybody want my life?

Over my Christmas vacation, I heard enough snide "alcoholic" comments that I decided on an experiment: no liquor for two weeks.  And here ( Read more... )

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Hmm, winter's here.  There are icicles hanging off my car, and I couldn't roll the window down tonight.  And the step outside my front door is covered with a fine layer of ice, which I have only had to pick myself up off of twice now.  And my furnace is struggling to keep the temperature at 65 degrees.  So I took a hint from our former Russian ( Read more... )

Interesting tidbit regarding elections in Ohio:  Since all liquor sales are handled through the state government (see my earlier post), the voters get to decide which stores or restaurants are allowed to serve liquor on Sundays.  In California, businesses have to get a license to sell alcohol.  In Ohio, they have to campaign for it.

So, Red Lobster ( Read more... )

Today was the first day of my six-day orientation bonanza at Ohio State.  The school's Faculty and Teaching Assistant Development department is hosting the first three days, which are devoted to cramming as much information about effective teaching down my gullet as possible.  I learned the demographics of Ohio State's undergraduate and graduate ( Read more... )

Bitchin' weekend.  My homie hamlin42 came to Sactown for a birthday/going away visit and brought with him one of the greatest gifts ever:  an Armenian Liquor Sword.  This hollow glass and faux wood monstrosity is handy in battle and for cleaning out the resulting wounds (the liquor inside certainly isn't much for drinking; see below)!  See hamlin42's ( Read more... )