Broke again? Here’s a handy calculator to show you how much money you’re tossing down the bottle or needle a month and year, along with all the great things you could’ve bought instead.
alcohol
Undiluted Drink? That’ll Be Another Buck.
By 7.28.06
I love scotch. And when I order one, I always get somewhat annoyed by the pleb bartender who asks me if I want it with ice. Doesn’t he know that a fine single-malt should never be served with scotch, or watered down, unless with a mere thimbleful of spring water from the very locale in which the whiskey was distilled?
Coors Light, Taste The Ironies
By 7.14.06
Pete Coors, vice chairman of Coors Brewing Company, obviously never watched Scarface. Otherwise, he would be acutely aware of the dangers of getting high on your own supply, and might have avoided getting arrested for DUI. In May, Coors rolled through a stop sign in his Jaguar and was spotted by a trooper. A breathalyzer test registered a blood alcohol level of .88. .088.
Disneyworld Won’t Let You Get Drunk
By 5.29.06
For grumpy parents who take Disney’s particular brand of hallucinogenic chipperism as a soul-curdling annoyance, there’s only one way to get through a vacation at Disneyworld: drunk out of your gourd.
Kids Who Wear Alcohol-Branded Shirts More Likely To Get Loaded
By 4.7.06
That small child wearing the “I’m not as think as you drunk I am” t-shirt might be more likely to engage in pre-teen boozing, according to a recent Dartmouth Medical School study.
Drunken Danes Strike For Workplace Drinking
By 3.24.06
The Danes — long used to the luxury of boozing it up with a flagon of ale through their breaks and then stumbling back to the mill to use their omni-digital and claw-like hands to tremblingly feed another log through the buzz saw — are up in arms over attempts to curtail their lunchtime inebriation.
Vice Costs More Money Than Money That Exists
By 3.20.06
Cigarettes costs society $167 billion dollars a year in health costs and lost productivity. Sweet liquid bread costs us $185 billion dollars a year. McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s? $115 billion. And indulging in carnivorism alone costs over $1 trillion a year. The tab of costs to our economy, according to research by various interests groups, is truly astronomical.
We Will Build Irish Pubs For You, Wholesale
By 3.20.06
A late Saint Patrick’s day for you: Slate is taking a look at the construction of “traditional Irish pubs” across the world.
I’m Hungover. Also, Michigan Wine Wholesalers
By 3.13.06
John Brownlee here. As you can tell from the alcohol-oriented nature of the last two posts, I’m a tad hungover this morning. You know, when I moved to Ireland, got a job and called in sick for the first time, I was surprised to note that my boss instantly assumed that I had “gotten a dirty glass” the night before (no one in Ireland ever gets drunk or hungover: the most that ever happens is that our systems react unfavorably to the dust at the bottom of our twelfth pint of Guinness) and that, furthermore, being drunk was a perfectly acceptable excuse in the Irish business world for calling out sick that day.
Ahhhh, the Frenshhh… Orson Welles for Paul Masson
By 3.13.06
It’s Monday morning. After a weekend of lubricated excess, our skulls seem just about ready to split open in jagged cranial shards, expelling the alcohol-befuddled goop inside. The universe does dizzying pirouettes about us; all we want to do is lay on the couch, watch the Sleepover Club on Nickelodeon, remark to ourselves how some of those girls are definitely long-term investments and sweat out our delirium tremens. Yet here we are, soldiering forth against our body’s most desperate urges to our loathed jobs, where being drunk is simply not a valid excuse for absence. Except in Ireland.
Wal-Mart Executive Funds $500,000 Booze-Fueled Rampage
By 1.31.06
It turns out that our loathed, stinky arch-nemesis Wal-Mart doesn’t merely steal the souls of the self-respecting working Joe (not to mention the serenity of America’s picturesque highway suburbs). It also steals from itself.
