Inflation at its worse.

I never took Economics. Nor did I take that much Math to be honest,( and based on my grammer in recent posts, English classes was something else I sorta missed out on). With that said, this post may be filled with rather ignorant statements and questions, so if you have a problem with that then.....suck it?

When I started driving and found that gas went from 3.20 to 4.06 a gallon, I didn't really get pissed, i just accepted that, it was something that needed to happen. When gas prices went down to 3.20 I was a very happy trooper. Suffice to say, Prices are up again. Now I believe the reason is a mixture between supply and demand, and inflation, but once again I don't know. One thing I do know is that, Tonight was the first night I was sick of the rising prices, and decided I wouldn't stand for it anymore. Oh and if your wondering why I'm talking about Oil in a Beer Blog, I'm not. The price raise that sickened me today was when I saw that a cup of Beer was 9 freaking dollars.

Now we all know that Venues make most of their money on concessions, people need to eat and drink, they will buy it no matter what the cost (I think thats actually supply and demand,no?). Today I went to a show at the Gibson Ampitheatre, and was shocked to find a cup of Beer in the 9 dollar range. The rising of prices has become such a serious issue, that when Artie Moreno bought the Anaheim Angels in 2003. The first change he wanted to make was nothing to do with the Roster or Staff, but to lower beer prices in the stadium.

But its not just in venue places. In New York for instance Yuengling can be up to 5 bucks in Brooklyn, and 7 bucks in Manhattan, as opposed to the 3 dollars in Philly. Now I get it costs more to ship it to New York, but is it really 2 dollars more from Brooklyn to Manhattan? And the quality of this beer isn't even good, its not like I'm paying more because they've specially delivered the beer from Pottsville to New York and are taking good care of it. The beer normally sucks, your paying 7 bucks for a stale crappy beer. Damn you New York, if you're going to over price me, you should at least make the Yuengling taste the way it should.

Theres a movie theatre chain in LA called the Arclight, It charges about 3 dollars more than your average theatre, but with that you are getting fine projection, good patrons, proper maintenance. You are paying more to get more. So the whole idea of not even knowing if you are getting a fresh beer, or stale beer, when you are dropping down almost double digit dollars, is rather absurd to me. It's Russian Roulette with my liver, and my wallet.

If beer is now in the 9 dollar range, I think its time we set some rules as to why it is, and what we as consumers should expect back in return. If people started going into stores and buying moldy bread for twice the price, you think no one would complain? I fear that just cause the current demographic in question is full of Beer Drinkers, the companies can do whatever they want because they feel we are too juvenile to care about it. Well if Wine connoisseurs can be taken seriously and respected, then dammit...we should be too. Eff 9 Dollars for a pint of beer.

P.S, It may be obvious that this entire post may have been written just bec ause I am going through a Yuengling withdrawl. It should not detract from the main point at hand though. God I miss Yuengling.

70 Hour Work Weeks = Forced Lent for Alcoholics.

Working nights and doing recent 70 hour weeks on average makes it really hard to get a pint. There's something very wrong about coming home at 11am after a 14 hour work day and grabbing a cold one out the back of the fridge, It just screams "Alcoholic". However when my Highschool buddy visits LA and asks me to take him to just one place, and I end up taking him to a Bar. Then maybe I should just admit that when it comes to being an Alki, I'm in the gray zone. The only redeeming factor is that, its a really damn great bar.

Fathers Office is the best thing to do in Santa Monica. They have the best taps in LA, the best burger in LA, and on a general scale, some of the nicest people in LA. I was a bit shocked to find out that when I showed up this time, there was a line outside the door. I thought it was going to be turned into another full packed bar where you have to wait 10 minutes just to order a drink, but it turns out that they only let 75 people in at a time. The upside is you don't have to be smushed and yell in order to speak to anybody. The downside is once your inside, and your friend shows up late, he has to wait in the line in order to get in.

The bar strengthens in domestics, but they have some pretty interesting imports. For example, not only do they have Maredsous 8, but they have...you ready? Maredsous 10! I didn't even know it existed, what would 10 be? 2 better? Sadly it wasn't, it was 3 under. By attempting to make the original stronger it lost a lot of the flavor that makes Maddy 8 so yummy. But a bad beer is made better by a great burger, and Fathers Office provides it. Normally I don't like Onions and other junk on my burger, but this is the one exception. They only let you have it the way they want to prepare it, but trust me its good. So you can either go there for a great burger, or if you get some masochistic kick on Chef's telling you how you should eat, Fathers Office can provide you with all your kinky needs.

And with that said, here's a new section called, "Paul's Drunk Questions". Remember when the teachers would say "There's no such thing as dumb questions." Well, there are. But when you're drunk your totally allowed to ask them because people will either be entertained by this random act of stupidity, or they will forget the next day. There is only one rule, you cannot look up anything to answer, it has to be as if you're in a bar, and totally pissed. So here it goes, What came first, Orange the color? Or Orange the Fruit? Most people retort with the color, but really? Where does the natural color orange exist other than a fruit? A sunset sky? This leads to another path, the origin of words, such as, were the first colors..in Latin? And is Orange the fruit, the same as Orange the color in Japanese? Once again, you can't look up any answers online, feel free to give your two cents.