Too Young To Buy Beer, Too Old To Care

So last weekend I was at the grocery store picking up the usual assortment of things I'm supposed to eat.  Lean turkey, lowfat cheese, high-fiber low-carb pita bread, fresh spinach, fresh broccoli, hummus, shredded wheat, etc.  I happened by the beer section and saw that a local brewer put out a summer ale that sounded mighty sexy.  On a whim I picked it up and took it to the register.  The checker was, naturally, underage, and so a supervisor had to come and look at my license for proof of age.  She asked if she could take my wallet (um, no, you can't take my wallet), and eventually settled for taking my license.  Then she came back and informed me that people with non-New York driver's licenses can't buy beer and if I didn't have another proof of my age I couldn't buy it.

 

Now, listen, people.  I'm approaching a Significant Age that reduces some women to tears in the middle of the night.  I myself have felt middle-aged since elementary school, so I can't say that it matters much to me, although I will say that being single at this age is pretty freighted.  One of the few compensations for having the 17-year-old supermarket checker look at you as though you're geriatric is the opportunity to buy beer without being audited in this fashion.  Fortunately, one of the other compensations is that there is absolutely no desperation about having beer.  I'm fairly sure that if I go to the brewery in question I'll be able to purchase said beer even though my driver's license is from Arizona.  I certainly don't need beer.  Indeed, it was sort of wrecking my healthy food streak, anyway.

 

But I have one question for that supermarket.  If I were underage, would I really be buying my beer to chug alongside high-fiber, low-carb pita bread?  Are they huffing pitas now?  Seriously, is this some new youth crisis I should know about?

Running up that hill....

That is an awesome song by Kate Bush, from back in the day. The song was also featured in The Chocolate War, which was an awesome book. But that's not the point.

As you might imagine, I was running up a hill today. I was on my usual 7 mile hilly route, and decided to double back on the hilliest part instead of doing a loop so I'd get in more hills. Not sure why. I was climbing up the last hill, and looking up at the top, and feeling tired. I've been tired running lately. It's better now that I'm on taper (I love taper this time) but still not feeling super strong running. But there I am, jogging up the hill, and looking at the top, and feeling tired and crabby. I was wishing that the hard part was over already, or that magically someone would give me a ride to the top, and I had this thought "what would I pay to be up there, at the top, instead of down here looking at it." And then it hit me. I wouldn't give a thing. I was running up this hill because I wanted to, and when I reached the top it would be because I had run up it and beaten it, and I wouldn't want anything to take that away. So I picked up the pace and ran up the hill. And when I reached the top, I was tired and out of breath, but I was still running and I was glad for it. Sometimes I think that describes some parts of life. Just some of them. Lots of other times in life I'd say "f#$k this hill, just get me home" but there are times when you choose to run it and it's worth it.

This ends my pseudo-profound running metaphor. More even cooler posts about computer games to follow, never fear.

Master of Orion 1 and 2 ... The Revenge!

A while back I posted about Master of Orion, an incredibly fun 4X (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate) space strategy game from the days of yore that I've been playing since I was in diapers (computer-wise, anyway). Well, just today, GOG.com (Good Old Games) got Master of Orion 1 AND 2 posted for $5.99. What GOG does, very well, is take the games, remove all DRM (manual checks, disk checks, etc), bundle them with a pre-configured version of DOSBOX (see prior posts about that one), and then distributes them as Windows apps. So you get, in effect, a fully functioning old game that runs fine on a modern system without troubling ancient copy protection cropping up and without having to do a lot of fancy fiddling with DOSBOX to make it run. It's sweet! And now MOO1 AND 2 are available. I've been able to get MOO1 to run in Linux (DOSBOX has a Linux version) and assume you could for 2 as well. MOO2 is, by the way, almost as fun as MOO1. So if you've got an old school gamer bone in your body, you've got to check this out!

Supermoth

Mike Birbiglia was hilarious. We laughed. We cried. We were shocked. We laughed some more. I had the honor of speaking briefly to Flora Hogman, who told the evening's most affecting story, about her mother's final act on her way to Auschwitz, entrusting her daughter to the care of a convent, and Flora's journey to recover her name, her past, and her sense of belonging.

I also had the opportunity to accost Mike Birbiglia during the intermission, but I elected instead to let him proceed to the bathroom. I expect my fangirl medal in the mail any day now.

The evening was all I hoped and more, and if I manage to find a gas station before I run out of fumes on my way home, my life will truly be worth living.

Moth at the Player's Club

After a real roller-coaster of a day (all work-related and all thoroughly boring to humans with lives) I actually managed to leave work early enough too catch the train and get to the Player's Club. I'd never been before, and it's amazing. The place is stuffed with portraits--I waited in line for my tickets next to Edward Albee and Katharine Hepburn--and it's not at all the setting I imagined. It's all red velvet and gilt and dark wood.

Mike Birbiglia is hosting the evening of storytelling, and the theme ("Hoodwinked") is immensely promising. More from the train if I'm awake enough.