I'm glad Friday is here. The week at the office has been brutal. I had to cover for two absent partners and work has been rushing in like I'm the only lawyer in town. It's a great blessing, but it gets exhausting. I hope to use today to mop up files around the office and maybe, just maybe, drink a beer tonight.
Some of you may recall that I lately haven't been able to drink without getting a hangover. I saw my doctor yesterday and he said I'm probably out of drinking luck. "You're 40. Your body is changing. It's not unusual that people simply can't drink any more once they hit middle age." He assured me that the hangovers aren't at all a sign of a liver problem, so that was good. He also told me to go ahead and try to drink whenever I feel up to it. I might be getting hangovers, but a few beers won't hurt my health.
Anyway, it's now been four weeks since I've had any alcohol whatsoever. A few readers have sent me advice (try higher-end beers), so I might try that. I have written to the excellent Bell's Brewing Company (in Kalamazoo, Michigan), asking if any of their beers meet the German Beer Purity Law. We'll see what they say.
A novice teacher in Milan is under criminal investigation for allegedly using scissors to cut the tongue of a second-grader for talking in class, Italian news agencies said Thursday. The 7-year-old boy, who has not been publicly identified, needed six stitches in his tongue from the Feb. 20 incident, said Piero Porciani, a lawyer for the child's parents, a Tunisian couple.
The schools need to bring back an element of corporal punishment (if only in mild form; the wilder boys need the threat of getting humiliated physically), but this is going a bit too far. I prefer stabbing students in the hand with a fork. It works for teaching manners at the kitchen table, though it has a deadening effect on dinner conversation.
Brews You Can Use
A US inventor has come up with a fridge that throws cold cans of beer to lazy drinkers.
It's a great idea. Get me one of those babies, a big pair of Depends, some non-hangover-inducing beer, a Lazy-boy chair, and twelve hours of great TV, and I'm all set.
A WaPo articles explains why light causes skunkiness. Excerpt:
Light sensitivity is caused by hops, the dried female flowers of the hop plant that have been used for about 1,000 years to impart bitterness and a mellow aroma to beer and other brews. Hops boiled during the brewing process contain chemicals called isohumulones, also known as isomerized alpha acids, which when struck by visible or ultraviolet light produce some of the same chemicals that skunks spray at their antagonists. Beer drinkers understandably are not fond of the accompanying scent and spurn light-struck beer as being "skunky" or "skunked."
I hate skunky beer. I hate it even more now, knowing that its cause is so boring.
