Tonight I’m posting from the Flying Saucer, at Pint Nite. I’m at the end of my third beer so this will probably turn into a drunk post by the end. I have Sunday drinking pics for you… but first, you have to listen to me rant about our stupid-ass federal government for a little while.
The government is evacuating U.S. citizens from Lebanon to the island nation of Cyprus, due to the recent hostilities between Lebanon and Israel. So today, I was cruising CNN, MSNBC, all the news sites, catching up on the latest developements, when I came across this tidbit of information: “The U.S. government does not provide no-cost transportation,” writes the State Department. They are making each evacuee sign a promissory note that they will pay the government back for the cost of the trip to Cyprus, plus interest.
WTF? The government has spent $400 billion blowing up Iraq, and they they’re not willing to spend a few million to get Americans out of harm’s way. I wonder how many of our citizens will turn down the offer because they don’t want to go into debt, and will risk getting killed in the process. Absolutely ridiculous and it shows how far off track this government’s priorities have gotten. Who matters in this country? Not you. Unless you’re a corporation.
Now I was already ticked off after reading that MSNBC story, but then I started surfing other sites. One of my daily stops is Nine O’Clock, an English-language website that reports the latest news from Romania. They’re evacuating citizens from Lebanon as well. Nine O’Clock reports that 283 Romanians evacuated from Lebanon arrived home today. “The Foreign Ministry intends to cover the costs of the evacuation from the emergency consular fund,” it says.
So Romanian citizens got out for free (except for a $50 fee to get a visa into Syria) and the U.S. is sending everyone a bill. You know that our government has gone to hell in a handbasket when RO FUCKING MANIA takes better care of its citizens than we do. Unbelievable. It would have been easy for Congress to pass an emergency bill covering the costs. But they didn’t. Each and every one of the 535 members of Congress deserves to be thrown out of office on their keister for that. Republicans and Democrats both.
Heh. I don’t think I’ve heard the word “keister” since All in the Family went off the air. Remember how they used to talk? They’d refer to the toilet as the “turrrlet.” Oil was “earl.” If they were sitting here in the Saucer with me they’d probably refer to it as the “Sasser.” Mistakenly thinking the bar was named after former U.S. Senator Jim Sasser, of course. I wonder if Jim Sasser would have voted to make Americans pay their own way out of a war zone. Of course, we’ll never know because he was beaten in the 1994 general election by Bill Frist. Bill Frist, by the way, is an asswipe.
All right. So much for the ranting part of the post. Let’s get on to the good stuff.
Yesterday I had two bottles of champagne, two mint juleps, a duck fart, two jello shots, and several beers. At one point I walked home for about 10 minutes and fired up the laptop. I had an e-mail from fellow blogger Kat (she moved her blog; I need to ask permission before I post the new URL) asking when we’re going to hang out again. In my drunken state, I replied, “I don’t know but you better wear a slutty outfit and it’s probably going to get taken off.” This morning I found that message in my Sent box, and was trying to figure out if I should e-mail an apology. Things got busy at work so I never did. Now I’m sitting here at the Saucer and Kat just called. “Paul! Where are you? I’m coming downtown!” Guess the apology is unnecessary, then.
So last week I mentioned that I’m probably the only person in Memphis not to have a picture on MySpace of himself at a bar drinking with Mendi. Well, that problem has been addressed. See below:
Mendi is captain of her Sunday drinking team and brought the team in for a bottle of champagne at Sleep Out’s. Mendi is awesome. There will be more on the Sunday drinking team later in this post.
Around that time I was playing NTN Trivia and receiving some very stiff challenges from my friend PDS, who was there with former downtowner Tracy. In fact, PDS managed to beat me three times in a row. It has become an established rule that if you win an NTN Trivia game at Sleep Out’s, you have to do a victory dance. Here are a few pics of PDS’s dance:
A few days ago, one of the Romanian girls asked me if she could bite my neck. Not being one to turn down physical advances from gorgeous, sexy European women, I said sure, go ahead. Afterward I remembered what region of Romania she was from… Transylvania. Now look what happened:
Later in the evening I ran into the Sunday drinking team on the patio of Swig. Here are a couple of candid photos of Mendi:
And a photo of Sunday drinking team member Jessica:
In other news, congrats to Philip who writes the excellent Life in and Around Memphis blog – his blog recently won an award as one of the best blogs in Tennessee. A well deserved award. Philip’s site is one I check frequently to keep plugged into the Memphis scene.
Ptolemy Memphis is having a happy hour at the Redbirds game Thursday night. Ptolemy is one of the Carnival Krewes and is basically a year-long party. I’m not a member, but a lot of good people are (including Philip and Kat mentioned in this post). The happy hour is open to the public, so if you’ve ever thought about joining Ptolemy, this is a good chance to check them out. If you’re interested, e-mail me and I’ll put you in touch with Philip for the details.
I’m still not drunk. Kat hasn’t called. The Saucer is filling up with people and they’re all guys. This sucks. I’m hitting the Post button and logging out. See ya…