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Don't drink and drive. But if you have to drive, don't drink Budweiser.

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TEENAGE DRINKY DRINKY

There's been a lot of talk about college presidents lobbying to lower the drinking age from 21 to 18 in the U.S. to allegedly cut down on college binge drinking, which is naturally making M.A.D.D. mad. This wouldn't change things much for me, since I'm (barely) over 21 and I already drink with teenagers all the time at numerous stops along Nyack's "Underage Railroad" (a brilliant phrase coined by Kris). In fact, I will be doing some hard-hitting undercover investigative reporting on this very topic after work today.

I'm not sure this will really help, because although drinking is a huge part of the culture, most of the problems stem from driving. So here's my counterproposal: lower the drinking age to 18, raise the driving age to 22, and make alcohol/beer advertisements on television illegal. Also, liquor stores should scan every ID to ensure that those under 21 can only buy 1 case of beer or 1 bottle of hard alcohol a day. Colleges and universities should also offer transportation in the form of some sort of . . . light rail?

However, the best thing about this debate is the multitude of pictures of drunken debauchery that are being included with the articles on the internet. Here's a breakdown of each site and what visual they chose:

Over The Limit: hot chick face down in toilet

ABC NEWS: shirtless guys doing keg stands on beach

WSJ BLOG: "unidentified man pours beer from a Jack Daniel's bottle into a beer bong before a football game in Madison, WI" (WTF? A Jack Daniel's bottle?)

Ontario Now: a rare shot of an inebriated Lindsay Lohan in the wild

Gothamist: FRANK THE TANK!

Gothamist FTW!

DANA JACOBSON, WILL YOU MARRY ME?

Dana Jacobson is an ESPN anchor (or so they tell me, I don't watch the channel enough to have seen her) who recently got into a bit of trouble. Allegedly, she got rip-roaring drunk at something called "The Mike & Mike in the Morning Celebrity Roast" (some self-congratulatory piece of shit ESPN function), got up on stage and dropped some F-bombs. She said something to the effect of "Fuck Notre Dame, fuck Touchdown Jesus, fuck Jesus". This apparently "embarrassed" ESPN (as if their horrendous programming isn't doing that job already) and forced them to give her a week's vacation.

(Before anyone gets outraged about these out of context remarks, remember that this is a roast, so there's bound to be some off-color remarks made. And even if she said this to Jesus' face, I believe he would forgive her. So basically, you bunch of overly sensitive PC pussies, get a fucking sense of humor.)

Anyway, this is what I know about her:

1) She's 36 and single
2) She's a sports fan
3) She's tall (reports have her as being anywhere from 5'9" to 6')
4) She loves Belvedere vodka
5) She hates Notre Dame
6) She can't endure worthless banter surrounding two completely uninteresting sports radio hosts while sober

What's not to like about this woman? I'm trying to find a fault and I really can't, except for her employer (but who am I to talk?). Some internet trolls have declared her "unattractive", but I can only assume they are all capable of dating supermodels when they're not commenting on Deadspin and downloading hentai porn.

What I'm trying to say is . . . Dana, will you marry me?

(Feel free to leave your answer in the comments.)

UPDATE: Baseball Musings found this fantastic picture. How can you beat that?

SLEEPDRIVING

Web news headlines crack me up. They have to be 7 words or less to sum up the story they link to, and also tease it just enough to make you want to click on it (like Whale kills would-be rescuer in Japan). The ones on my cell phone browser are even funnier; since they have to fit on a tiny screen, they're usually only 3 words long. Today I saw these two winners: "Pumps Are Faulty" and "Man Blames Unicorns". Unless you've already heard these stories, you can't possibly know what either one is referring to from those ridiculously succinct links. Personally, I'd like to think they're related to the same story; unicorns are always messing with the pumps, and it's about time someone spoke up about it. The pump don't work 'cause the unicorn stole the handle!

Anyway, I saw this news story link just now: FDA says pills can cause 'sleep-driving' - BusinessWeek. Being in the pharmaceutical business, I naturally had to click on it. Immediately, the article lost me with the first sentence: "All prescription sleeping pills may sometimes cause sleep-driving, federal health officials warned Wednesday, almost a year after the bizarre side effect first made headlines when Rep. Patrick Kennedy crashed his car after taking Ambien."

Come on. Don't treat us like we're stupid. We're talking about a KENNEDY here, Patrick Kennedy, the son of Ted Kennedy! You expect me to believe he was "sleep driving" at 2:45 AM with his lights off because of a prescription drug? Police on the scene said he smelled of alcohol, he claimed to be "late for a vote" (6 hours earlier), and he even went to rehab immediately after this incident. What a complete and utter load of bullshit. If he was actually not driving drunk, if it was Phenergan and not Frangelico that made him crash into a barrier outside the Capitol, I will eat my shorts with a side of freedom fries.

The bigger story here hasn't been touched on here: the incredible laziness of the American people. If this story is to be believed, we don't even sleepwalk anymore, now we sleepdrive. At least if you sleepwalk, you might accidentally get some exercise. Regardless, this whole story can be summed up by "lawyers forcing companies to make even more warning labels".