When I was in the UK a long time ago, there were televised darts matches (and televised celebrity skeet-shooting, but I digress). I noticed that the darts players drank significant amounts of beer during the matches and some of them clearly got better as time went on.
Possibly randomized controlled trials would be needed to be certain of this. At the least sports analytics could count the tankards consumed for Fantasy Darts League players.
What is curling about anyway? Is it shuffle board on ice?
I get better at pool with a little bit of alcohol. My peak performance is 1.5 drinks, and then it drops. The last time I played pool in a bar, at 1.5 drinks I practically ran the table. Then I finished my drink and promptly was unable to sink another ball.
This reminds me of the Mitchell and Webb "slightly less than two drinks" sketch.
4: So, a combination of quidditch and shuffle board?
I don't think they drink enough to put the brooms between their legs.
3: also the episode of Red Dwarf where Lister insists on drinking six cans of lager before launching a thermonuclear missile because it always made him more accurate when he was playing pool.
I can't remember if it was Canadians or wizards that were fictional.
Was there a movie with an alcoholic sharpshooter? He seems like this pathetic old man with trembling hands, and then he has a few drinks and he becomes a killing machine,
Maybe I made it up just like I made up Canadians and wizards and all of you.
Also xkcd's Ballmer Peak. Except since Munroe is a nerd, he puts the peak at an implausibly high 0.1337.
Does nobody remember Bill Werbenuik, a great Canadian?
I definitely think alcohol can be a performance-enhancing drug for playing music, but it's obviously possible (easy, even!) to overdo it.
I've recently moderated my drinking pretty aggressively, and it's been interesting to try to adjust accordingly when playing music. Where I used to drink easily four beers during a music rehearsal or a gig, now I have to be very careful to be in the 1-2 range, or my playing goes to absolute shit. I compensate by adding in seltzer water, because a lot of it is just anxious sipping and seltzer works for that.
Don't put seltzer in beer, you monster.
9 Not a sharpshooter but a retired gunfighter in Unforgiven.
With commenting -- just speaking as a fan -- it seems to me that the more commenters drink, the better the comments. The only limit is the commenter passing out.
14: Thanks, I think that was it.
I just saw Clint Eastwood in a trailer for The Mule. I don't think I've ever seen so many lines on a face.
Is it one of Sister Sara's mules?
17: Nope.
The film is based on the true story of Leo Sharp, a World War II veteran in his 80s who became a drug dealer and courier for the Sinaloa Cartel
Still better than the Boomers who got old and voted Trump.
I compensate by adding in seltzer water, because a lot of it is just anxious sipping and seltzer works for that.
I do the nervous sipping thing too and always appreciate finding new ways to drink moderate amounts of alcohol in large volumes of mixer. A regular pour of scotch in a pint glass of water/soda is one of my go-tos. I'm not sure about selzter in beer but it's worth a try.
(and yes I know it's a shame to do that to good scotch, but I don't do it to good scotch b/c the whole point is that it doesn't taste all that good.)
More to the point of the OP, I can't right off hand think of anything I'm better at after a couple of tipples except maybe pretending not to dislike the company I'm with.
I had an experience like Heebie's of running while drunk when I was younger and fitter, and in freezing cold to boot, with pretty much the same reaction: more fun than expected then, would never do again now even if I could.
Somehow that curling story didn't include a link to this classic image. Definitely a missed opportunity. There's some great video in the link as well.
Long ago, almost within slight of Canada, I was in a beer relay. It was fun enough. Afterwards, there was some discussion about the performance enhancing properties of some LSD I happened to have ingested a couple hours earlier.
With commenting -- just speaking as a fan -- it seems to me that the more commenters drink, the better the comments. The only limit is the commenter passing out.
I've definitely noticed a marked decline in both the quantity and quality of my comments as I've cut back a lot on drinking over the past couple years.
I'm willing to have a couple ounces of whiskey to enhance my commenting. Not sure hallucinogens would work for me y'all.
Just to clarify, I do not pour seltzer into my beer, but I'm amused that Moby made that joke and Swope ran with it.
Another sport that frequently involves booze is skiing/snowboarding. I mean, what could go wrong?
15: I just drank a lot for a party. Go ahead, ask me something to be opinionated about! Mostly certain that when I drink my volume of commenting increases, but quality decreases. (Most of my fights here correspond with drinking. I think I've only pissed off teo while drunk?)
The seltzer/beer thing seems both inherently wrong yet a wonderful bit of advice for a fallen world. Or a fallen liver.
Fallen livers are the only livers that earn their keep.
Right. I've spent all this time not flooding my body with toxins, liver, this is your time to shine. Prime time. C'mon.
Go ahead, ask me something to be opinionated about!
How awesome is the designated hitter?
I think it's really cool that some but not all baseball teams decide one of their guys really sucks at his responsibilities, so they need to hire a separate guy who sucks less. Adam Smith, or one of the earlier capitalist philosophers maybe, thought that was a good idea, so I'm reluctantly pro designated hitter.
Mostly it confuses me when people still have strongly felt opinions about baseball.
Most of my fights here correspond with drinking. I think I've only pissed off teo while drunk?
Yeah, probably.
Go ahead, ask me something to be opinionated about!
This is an open call for anyone here, drunk or otherwise: tell me all about ways that Catholics and their church have made the world a better place. I know we've done many rounds of this, but for uninteresting reasons of my own I'd like some help thinking positive thoughts about Catholicism.
I confess I am right now not thinking positive thoughts about Catholicism. I try, but it keeps suddenly veering off towards Melania and the handmaid trees. Is there some penance I should do?
I didn't know teo even got pissed off.
It happens on occasion, usually when I've been drinking myself.
35/37: I was pretty drunk and associated the malignant aspects of Christianity with religiosity in general. That was a mistake and I apologize for it. (I was also less hard on techno-utopianism than I should have been.) Anyone affected would be right to be angry about it. I fucked up and angered a generally harmless northern bear. (Time zones helped in this regard.)
36: It's complicated for me to be positive about Catholicism, what with the ex-Catholicness, but: Jesuits and Jesuit-educated folk as a class are a delight to argue with. Catholicism was early to the ideas of social justice. There's a Catholic concept on prioritizing who you should help--basically, why it's not wrong to help your neighbor down on their luck when people half the world away suffer more--that I've found useful, but I clearly am at a loss to articulate as I can't even remember the name (drunkenness, etc.). Liberation theology came to Latin America mostly through Catholicism. Even if I'm critical of it having done net good, Catholicism has done gross good.
|| In case anyone is wondering, that Neko Case can really sing. |>
40: this is true, but i should note that "last lion of albion" is, while a pleasant song, just about the most facile rallying cry of anti-colonialism possible.
tell me all about ways that Catholics and their church have made the world a better place.
My Catholic friend's mom, in my youth, must have fed me dinner 100 times.
Music, architecture, art, obvs. I am ignorant of details.
40 is the fucking truth. Also her stage patter is amazing. "This is called a heraldic grouping. There's some art history for you. We are heraldically grouped for you."
Okay wait, I had one positive thought: Antonio Vieira's 1653 sermon for Lent:
Christians, nobles, and people of Maranhão, do you know what God wants of you this Lenten season? That you break the chains of injustice, and let free those whom you have captive and oppressed. These are the sins of Maranhão; these are what God commanded me to denounce to you. Christians, God commanded me to make these matters clear to you, and so I do it. All of you are in mortal sin; all of you live in a state of condemnation; and all of you are going directly to hell. Indeed, many are there now, and you will soon join them if you do not change your ways.
Is it possible that an entire people live in sin, that an entire people will go to hell? Who questions this does not understand the evil of unjust captivity.
And the Sagrada Familia. I haven't seen it in ten years. It's more done now! They are constantly adding more Sagrada Familia to the world! The doors of the Sagrada Familia!!
And cross-fertilization by Jesuits produced the golden age of Qing art. Which, if ever you get a chance to see an exhibition, don't miss.
41 Usually when I go see a show, I already know nearly every word of nearly every song. I am somehow unable (or, I guess, have been unwilling) to learn any of Case's songs, and so it's just a sonic experience.
Good Catholic things -- the good bits of the Middle Ages; art - although here it should be balanced with the truly appalling quality of popular Catholic devotional taste: let's hear it for the sacred bleeding heart of Jesus; music almost without exception; poetry; Jesuits, Dominicans, Franciscans, or at least St Francis.
The big one for me is philosophy, and the attempt to build and entirely coherent anthropology on top of St Thomas and Aristotle. Not that I think it's entirely right, but the ambition is wonderful and it's always worth arguing with. The intellectual self-confidence (It's worth remembering that on the evidence then available, Galileo was wrong scientifically, as well as dumb politically). The attempt, arising from the philosophy, to come up with some middle way between Marx and Rockefeller and doing pretty well with Catholic Social Teaching.
The global consciousness today. I have had to read Francis' big two letters, on the environment and on the family, and they are both really impressive attempts at synthesising the very various problems faced by rich and poor.
There may be a few bad things too, but there is not enough room in the margins of this comment box ...
Modern Dominicans, yes. One of the most impressive people I ever knew was a Dominican. But historically, they did run a lot of autos da fe.
Great. Now I got to watch for exploding Dominicans.
They did restrain themselves from declaring a genocidal crusade to wipe every Protestant off the face of the earth, which is a good thing.
Anyway, I think I would have be a crueler person without Franciscan sisters showing me how to be sardonic in a loving way.
Although I blame them for the "De Colores" I just earwormed myself with.
Plus, wasn't it a barely disguised Catholic Church that tried to kill the people in Twilight? Though not hard enough, I guess.
Thanks everyone! NW, re "the truly appalling quality of popular Catholic devotional taste" -- IKRWTF?
I'm going to formally take the rest of the year off from commenting here, among other media restrictions. Have a great December and take care of yourselves.
You also. Enjoy some devotional art while you're away.
54: Enjoy the holidays! See you in 2019!
54.2 Have a good break and happy holidays!
54: Enjoy your holiday, and do come back in January!
This year Hanukkah is so early I'm just going to wish everyone a happy one now before I forget.
Happy Hanukkah.
Moby, if you say it again, it counts for 2019. You can stockpile these.
I'm all about the half-assed attention to the interests of other people.
Happy secular midwinter lurid! (And please do come back.)
OT: The 'and gifts' on the sign is a nice touch.
|| Reply brief in the USSC re Whitaker: https://www.dropbox.com/s/xvhlvksbghoel5j/Reply%20Final.pdf Read page 1. |>
The Jesuits? Well, yes, of course. The Franciscans? Well, maybe, but I think I might need a little more context. The Dominicans? Er, sorry, but probably no.
The drunken snooker player? ... oh wait, I think I'm getting my Catholicism all mixed in with my Canadianism...
Because I'm totally "rack 'em up now, boyo" when it comes to that snooker player...
65: So I read it. What happens next?
66: My pro-Domenican attitude is entirely down to Tim Radcliffe and Herbert McCabe. Preceding ones not so much.
It really needs to be easier to differentiate between Dominicans, Dominicans and Dominicans.
I think it might be a bit easier when you are talking because a Dominican as in the dodgy religious order is a doMInican while a Dominican as in someone from Dominica is a domiNEEcan.
69. Yes, I was thinking of Herbert in 48. I don't think I've ever met Tim Radcliffe, although I see he was dragged up in the same godforsaken suburb as me, so I might have. An in-law was Social Justice Coordinator - that's a job title - for the Dominicans in Ireland, and thought very highly of them, in spite of being a Buddhist herself.
||
And, completely off topic, are we allowed to have a chuckle at this?
|>
God only knows. You'd think the SC could find it pretty easy to duck the issue in this particular case. The guy who's got to be pissed right now is Trump, what with putting his guy in 3 weeks ago not only not really doing anything to stop the investigation, but, apparently, not preventing the guilty plea of Cohen. What's the point of a laughingstock lackey if he's not even going to try to win some news cycles?
The Pres is reduced to complaining that Mueller isn't going after Clinton, which is surely borderline even among the crazification range of his following.
I think it might be a bit easier when you are talking because a Dominican as in the dodgy religious order is a doMInican while a Dominican as in someone from Dominica is a domiNEEcan.
However, a Dominican as in someone from the Dominican Republic is the former again, so still confusing.
77. I don't generally approve of affecting the endonym for people and places which have generally recognised English exonyms, but in this instance I think there's a strong case for Dominicano/a.