Day: August 24, 2009

The McBournie Minute: Break the fast with the hair of the dog

There is a good chance many of you don’t know this, but I am a gourmet chef. I taught myself, and I believe it is now time for me to have my own cooking show. Of course, the world is saturated with cooking shows (both the how-to and the pseudo-dramatic types), so I have used my creativity and come up with a new angle.

The show will be called The Drunken Chef. Every week, I put back a few on camera, then show you how you can make a great sauce with getting sauced. Here’s how it would go:

“Hello there, and welcome to The Drunken Chef. I am your host, Bryan. I prefer you call me by my first name because we’re all friends here, and I kind of think of this as a bar. You don’t call people Mr. So-and-so at a bar, not even your boss. Anyway, as you have no doubt noticed, during my introduction, I have downed three shots of liquor. Now, today I am using Jim Beam bourbon, because it’s not horrible and it’s less than $40 for a handle. Can’t say that about Jack, can you? Continue reading The McBournie Minute: Break the fast with the hair of the dog

Because murder, drug use and sexual assault weren’t enough

A study of young people who are also pathological gamblers, surprise, turns up a connection to video games, in a report on Australia’s ABC News. Oh noes! Notably, however, another researcher knocks down the suggestion of a causal link.

“If you look at those young people who are classified as pathological gamblers you will find that they do have a higher frequency of involvement with many different types of videogame. They’re much more likely to play games on Xboxes and similar consoles. They are also more likely to play arcade games. It does suggest that if you’re a person who is playing very frequently, more likely if you’re a male too, and doing it from you know year after year, it’s probably more likely you’ll have a pattern of activity which will make poker machines quite attractive when you turn 18.”

It never seems to occur to them that videogames are a hugely popular activity enjoyed by most teenagers, so there’s bound to be a correlation between games and most other activities. Correlation which is not, of course, the same as causation. But hey, videogames have been linked to all sorts of sin and vice, so what’s one more problem to throw on the pile? Alex Blaszczynski, a psychology professor at the University of Sydney, thinks otherwise.

“Does an interest in gambling lead to people becoming involved in video games or do video games lead to people becoming involved in gambling? Or is there a third factor which accounts for both gambling and videogames? There’s also the possibility that some people with certain characteristics would then tend to engage in both video and technology type gaming activity and gambling as well. And that may well be linked to things like risk taking or impulsivity or other factors.”

Good luck, Blaszcynski.

When drinking beer is made illegal, only criminals will drink beer

Bill Clinton got those two journalists out of a North Korean prison, the Lockerbie bomber is back home again and the Aung San Suu Kyi story just isn’t that sexy. America needs a new foreign trial to follow. Just in time for back to school, we have one.

Malaysia has convicted a Muslim woman for drinking beer. Her punishment is caning (of course), but she seems to have gotten a reprieve–or at least a stay. Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno is sentenced for drinking beer, but the punishment will not happen until after Ramadan.

That gives us time to organize protests. Remember guys, drinking beer is not a crime! If it is not safe for everyone to drink beer, it’s not safe for any of us!