Kitty's Corner

It was about 5.20 am when I first saw this post, and I read it as ' Laptop Fart!'. Imagine my surprise and relief when I recognised my mistake

Originally posted by FlaRin:

It was about 5.20 am when I first saw this post, and I read it as ' Laptop Fart!'

I get that a lot lately. Are we gettin' old?

I expect so - it will and does happen even to the best of us, so I'm told

Poorly designed typefaces don't help any, nor does computer-set type, if the spacing hasn't been coded properly. Anyone who has REALLY worked with letters sees typesetting every day that is atrocious. When the bad stuff is pointed out to the typesetter or "graphic designer" (read: paste-up man), he says "But it must be right; the computer set it."

Keming. The result of improper kerning.

\\edit :

And...
YO MAMA’s so old, she refers to Century as Futura.

Sorry - I saw my opportunity, and I took it

I'm not saying anything.

My misreading of headlines and statements on posters and such also has something to do with hurrying through life in general. I skim instead of doing proper reading. Perhaps I should slow down. After all, I aint gettin younger.

Great cartoon, Kitty!

Age is only a number! (that keeps getting bigger)

As I am reaching middle-age (exactly when does that happen anyway?) I have quit digital watches. Truely. I have come to prefer old style watches with hands and numbers, tick-tocking and all that. Why? Because on a digital watch you can see how fast time is moving, seconds, milliseconds, but on an analogue watch time seems to move slowly and easily with no hurry, around and around. I like that.

The reason I (almost) never generate hangovers is because I'm aware of how little time we actually have to live, and I refuse to waste any days feeling like shit - it's usually a Saturday or a Sunday that you lose (maybe even both) and you only get 52 of them a year! I just refuse to throw away a day (that could otherwise be spent enjoyably with my other half), laying around with a headache (and having payed for the privelege handsomely with the money I worked so hard for during the week).


Mind you, having said that I can sink a half bottle of brandy or a small bottle of Aalborg without getting a headache or indeed feeling anything except a bit stunned the following day. Not necessarily something to be proud of, but.

Aalborg used to be my favourite. Can you believe how cheap a bottle of that stuff is? Compared to many other things, I mean. By the way, did you know, that in Danish maritime lingo half a bottle of Aaalborg is called 'en halv abe/half a monkey'? It's got something to do with bootleg smuggling. They used to smuggle exotic liquor in coconut shells, and a coconut is called 'en abe' in sailor slang.

I've done the monkey quite often. And hangovers? For little boys and old women, right?

Wake up feeling like you ate the papers off the bottom of a birdcage?
1) A good breakfast, preferably with a good chunk of meat, some eggs, and hashbrowns,
2) A glass of some kind of fruit juice, preferably grapefruit (if it's too tart, toss in NO MORE THAN 1½ ounces of a good quality whiskey (whiskey, besides being burny, is a very sweet substance),
3) A hot cup of coffee, and
4) A nice walk, not too vigorous, but not a stroll, either, to get your lungs flushed out.
Amazing how much better you'll feel.

Originally posted by derWandersmann:

A hot cup of coffee

I could not drink coffee when I had a hangover! There is something in coffee that reacts violently with a hungover stomach!
Instead, try strong black tea with way too much sugar in it. Sip slowly until you are able to drink it more liberally.
I would start with the tea before moving on to the food because I just could not approach food until my system settled down!
Fortunately it was, a) rare that I drank and b) Something that I chose to give up altogether before it became a habit!

I must admit I'm very fond of Jacobsen's beer - their Saaz Blonde and Dark Lager being my favourites They both need to be well chilled for my tastes, and then a bottle can just *go down the hatch*, with hardly a pause for a breath, on a warm day

Never tasted Jacobsens myself. They first appeared in 2005, and I had been clean for two years by that time. This also goes for all the new Danish micro-brewery beers that people are so fond of. For some reason they never make non-alcoholic beer. I guess the dealcoholization process is to expensive for the small breweries. I have to go to Germany to get proper non-alcoholic beer.

I've tried as many different types as I can find on the shelves (not in quantity, but just to see what they're like), and Jacobsens has come out tops on every count. It's as least as good as any of the excellent beers I was fond of in NZ, where I had much longer (than I've had here so far) to try them all and acquire a variety of likes and dislikes

I might drink a bottle, maybe two, in a week - often less (i.e. some weeks, nothing) - but no more.

As for the brandy and Aalborg, I find that not buying it is the perfect way to ensure I don't drink it Ditto Irish whiskey (Jamesons being my drink of choice in that department).

I never could stand the likes of Jack Daniels, and Southern Comfort (shudder). Too sweet, and\or not suited to my palate.

Like most alcoholics my favourites were vodka and snaps/akvavita because they do not contain any kind of 'dirt'. Well, the Norwegian Lysholmer (not bad at all) is matured in oak barrels, and will contain micro-particles, but the transparent spirits are fairly clean and therefore not as hard on the liver as whiskey, rum, tequila and such which contain all kinds of waste products - among other things sulfur. Perhaps this is why my liver hasn't dissolved over the years. My doctor calls it luck, because he has no other explanation. With my consume and the life I have lived, my intrails should have been long gone. He's probably right.

I often think about drinking (enough to get quite smashed), in the expectation of the relaxation and 'no need to worry about *anything*' state of mind it grants. I think I have the potential to be alcoholic, or at least alcohol-dependent (not quite the same thing). But I categorically deny that I'm either

I could actually get drunk like that anytime I'm alone, and don't have to talk to anyone for the rest of the day and have no responsibility to do anything the following day. That situation doesn't arise very often at all, almost never - perhaps luckily for me.

Alcoholism usually shows at an early age, so, unless you've had periods in you're youth, you shouldn't worry. Of course, it can develop if something happens like a sudden loss - divorce, sacking, death in the family, bankrupcy etc. - but that is actually quite rare, statisically speaking. Most cases of alcoholism has a history with the first signs at an early age.

Nah, I just used to get drunk as a youth, the usual idiot boy thing. Until my late 20s, then it was the usual idiot man thing. But purely social, not out of personal need for temporary selective oblivion\whatever.

Over the last 3 or 4 years, the drink became more of a life aid, and what I would turn to in the evening to not feel so bad about certain things - but that situation resolved, and the specific need for a drink (a whole bottle of wine and a couple of beers, or half of brandy kind of thing) to maintain equilibrium in the evening - every evening - and 'feel OK' about life has dwindled away, I hope never to return.

Not to worry. That is within the reign of normality. I had an unhealthy drinking pattern right from the start (at around fifteen). I could drink extreme amounts of beer and liquor and still stay cool, until a certain point where my personality would change and I'd become straight up nasty towards anyone who was around. And I would wake up next morning without remembering how I got home. My parents put a stop to it, and set up rules for drinking which I would uphold.

However, when I moved out, sixteen years of age, I was at large, and so was the Demon.

I still feel him lurking around from time to another, but I've learned how to deal with him - metaphorically speaking.

Yes ... like my berserker. I understand.

Originally posted by Lion:

the reign of normality.

Oh.My.God. I never really thought I'd join the ranks of 'normality'. How disappointing

Joking aside, in those quiet reflective moments that one has, I occasionally muse about self deception and self perception - how closely the two are linked.

Let's just say that normality hits hard. I have my scars. I even have a broken knee, because normality interfered with my temporary state of madness. After an evening of drinking lager vom Fass I ventured cross the park; I slipt and fell flat, whereafter something heavy fell cross my knees, smashing them both. It was in the middle of the night in a park, off-path. I couldn't see a thing. This rendered me an invalid, and it's why I am on the pension now. Down with 34 percent total physical capacity. Pretty normal story, actually.

This paints a nicer picture (if you'll pardon the expression) :
http://cdn3.retronaut.co/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Lovely.jpg -

I like that

...but it was probably the cause of this :
http://gotouring.com/razzledazzle/images/dazzle3-600.jpg -

One of my dad's oldest friend was a painter at a warf in Copenhagen, painting ships. He was also quite fond of beer. So was my dad but it was not what brought tmem together. But this guy, he developed some kind of mental illness in his late years, a sort of dementia, and everybody thought it was the alcohol. Until it showed that many of his colleagues had the same thing, including non-drinkers. It was the paint, of course. Really bad stuff, what they put on ships.

I have roots in the west country (of England) - specifically Somerset - and I know that there used to be a hospital (Tone Vale?) that was basically there for Cider drinkers - a psychiatric unit for the terminally Cider-demented. Serious stuff, full-blown Cider.

According to the wise words of the old-folks (who presumably managed to stay on the outside), anyway

\\edit : Indeed, in my former life, I purchased a container of home-brewed Cider from a farmer in Devon, that was almost certainly Lucifer's very own Piss. There were 3 grades on offer : 'sweet', 'medium' and 'dry'. I took the 'dry' (he warned "arrr. She's a good 'un!"), and I & my assistant drank some (not very much, maybe a half-pint each) that evening back in the hotel room.

When we woke up at about 11.30 am the following morning, the TV was on (but off-channel) with volume roaring to the max, the curtains had been pulled down, the bed was adrift, mattress halfway across the room, our groceries lay scattered around the floor, squashed, and the shower was flooded, with the towels stuffed over the drain-outlet.

Totally wild and bizarre, neither of us had the slightest recollection of anything other than settling down with a glass of this stuff to watch 'Mad Max' on TV at 8.30 the previous night.

Needless to say, we collected our belongings, put the 'do not disturb' sign up and went down to pay our bill and run away, never to be any the wiser about the events of that night.

True story, bro.

I dunno - it was a true farm, way off the road - the farmhouse could have been total shambolic chaos inside, or conversely all sweetly crocheted doilies and delicate pink china roses....we'll never know

The cider he brewed was kept quite a distance away in a barn, in 3 *huge* plastic barrels marked (surprisingly) 'sweet', 'medium' and 'dry'.

I believe that the longer it's kept (and thus the longer it continues to ferment), the 'drier' (i.e. sharper) it gets, as more and more sugar is converted into alcohol. Thus the drier it is to the palate, the stronger it is to drink. I think . The stuff I bought wasn't dynamite, it was semtex.