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I spent nearly an hour yesterday at work Googling synonyms for “groin.”

And it was totally legit.

NO SUCK: The 2007 World Series — at least, the first two games. God knows, there’s still plenty of time for this to spiral completely out of control and become yet another piece of Boston’s largely tortured (until this year, at least) sports legacy… but Games 1 and 2 have both proceeded according to plan. Granted, I’m a zombie this morning – thank you, Fox, for completely destroying my circadian rhythms – but I’ll take a close 2-1 win in October any time I can.

NO SUCK: The Boston Globe’s coverage of the 2007 World Series. One of the great joys of living in Boston is having daily access to one of the finest sports sections in any major metropolitan daily — and the Globe’s writers are in fine form this October. Beyond the terrific Bob Ryan article above, you’ve also got the consistently excellent work of Gordon Edes, Nick Cafardo and Amalie Benjamin, the always-wonderful Jackie MacMullan (probably my favorite Globe writer)… hell, even evil Dan Shaughnessey is rising above his normal diet of bile and personal vendetta to file a really well-written piece on Clint Hurdle.

NO SUCK: The Brother Kite has released a new EP, Moonlit Race… and if you’ve paid any attention to my TBK rantings over the past year-plus, you know that it’s already on steady rotation in both my car and on my iTunes. Only two of the songs are new – including the wonderfully hummable Half Century – but the live and alternate versions that constitute the rest of the CDEP are just as gorgeous and fascinating as anything they’ve ever produced. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: you need to make The Brother Kite a part of your life. Please trust me on this.

NO SUCK: Did I ever tell you how much I hate the phrase “outside the box?” Probably not, but I do. Anyhow, an article in this month’s GQ – which, unfortunately, I can’t find an online link for – addresses just that kind of stupid corporatespeak, and declaims “outside the box” as the kind of thing said by people who “wouldn’t recognize a triangle if one stabbed them in the eye.” I’m pretty sure I love that.

NO SUCK: Ipswich Brewing’s Harvest Ale — easily the best autumn seasonal I’ve had this year. So far. (Although Dogfish Head Punkin Ale – on tap! – was pretty kickass, too.)

Hey, look at that — an entire list without a single suck! Will wonders never cease.

What’s the drunkest you’ve ever been?

For me, it was the evening of February 14th, 1992.

I was living in Ireland at the time, doing the junior year abroad thing. The great irony of this, of course, lay in the fact that I didn’t actually drink before I moved to Ireland — I was a relatively clean-living youth for the first two years of my college life. At the end of my sophomore year, I could count on one hand the number of times I’d been inebriated in my life (including one loooooong, unpleasant evening in January of 2001, when the first Gulf War began, Wanda’s mother died on Doogie Howser, and my roommate Zek, his girlfriend Pipes and I found ourselves alone with only a large bottle of tequila to soothe our pain).

Ireland, of course, changed all of that. Beginning with the celebratory Guinness I hoisted upon arriving that first night in September, I immediately began to discover the joys of a freshly-poured pint in a nice pub. By the end of the first month, I was comfortably enjoying 2-3 pints a night with my friends… and things ramped up quickly from there. In retrospect, my learning curve was fairly impressive — it was something akin to going from 0-60 in under 6 seconds. It’s also clear, in retrospect, that the fact that my first formative experiences with beer involved Guinness, Murphy’s, Smithwick’s and the like – rather than the cheap, craptastic beers that define the great majority of the American collegiate drinking experience – played a key role in making me the inveterate beer snob I am today.

By the time my birthday rolled around in early February the following year… I was a pro. The fact that I was turning 21 was largely irrelevant, insofar as that the legal drinking age in Ireland is something like 12, but my cadre of friends still felt it was an event worth celebrating. They did a little research and actually found a pub in the city that made mixed drinks (a rarity in that part of Ireland back in the early 90s… generally, going to a pub meant you were getting a pint or two, a cider, a Bailey’s, or a few fingers of Bushmills. Mixed drinks were not a part of the equation.), and off we went.

When we sat down, we were presented with a drink menu — something like two dozen shots and mixed drinks, featuring a cornucopia of liqueurs and esoteric alcohols the likes of which I’d never seen before. Immediately, my friends launched in: “Get him a Brain Hemhorrage!” they cried. Two minutes later, I was presented with an oversized shot glass with multiple layers of something disgusting, topped by a murky pool of Bailey’s that did, in fact, bear a strong resemblance to a cerebellum. It was delicious, and we were off. As the evening continued, we hopscotched around the drink menu, interspersing Kamikazes with pints of lager and ale — a rookie mistake that often comes with tragic consequences, but we marched on with immunity: impervious, immortal, inebriated and expatriated.

By the time we called it a night – probably around 11:30, as pubs tend to close much earlier than their American counterparts – we’d put in a solid 4 hours of drinking. For my part, I’d partaken of well over a dozen of the menu items (including multiple Kamikazes… mmm…) as well as a half-dozen pints. Spirits were high, and I remember feeling relatively astonished that I didn’t feel more drunk than I did. We stopped by a kabob place for a late-evening bite, and then headed back to our individual flats.

(One of the great joys of living in Ireland was topping off a night at the pub with a spicy kabob. I never knew exactly what was in them – which is probably just as well – but they were saucy and spicy and flavorful and delicious, and you’d scarf one down as you stumbled home from the pub. When you woke up the next morning, you’d exhale spicy kabob breath onto your pillow, and all the hair on the front of your head would curl up from the fumes. Good times.)

By the time I arrived home, my kebab was gone — but I still had an appetite and a lot of energy. I turned on the TV, discovered that a Jean-Claude Van Damme classic was just beginning (God bless you, Irish cable TV of the early 90s), grabbed a bunch of satsuma oranges, and sat down to soak up the culture. 45 minutes later, I found myself sitting on the couch, surrounded by orange peels… and legitimately unable to follow the movie’s plot. Now, granted: Lionheart is easily one of the high-water marks of the “short Belgian dudes kicking a lot of people” genre… but it’s not what you’d call a real brain-teaser. “Maybe I’m a little more drunk than I think I am,” I remember thinking to myself… and so I went to bed.

Good night all the way around… but it laid the groundwork for the events of the following week.

My junior year abroad program was a sizable one, and among the many classmates who’d joined me in Ireland was my former roommate Zek. His girlfriend had transferred to another college after our sophomore year, and that change – combined with the fact that he was now 3000 miles away – had put significant stress on their relationship. He’d spent many nights – and a lot of cash – on long, agonizing, drama-filled phone calls to western Massachusetts, and it was clear to all of us that the relationship was in the midst of a long crash-and-burn.

Their calls (and arguments) had grown substantially more frequent and heated over the previous weeks, and finally it came to a point where Zek felt that things had become entirely untenable. And so, he called her and initiated the long-distance breakup.

Unfortunately, he arrived at this decision on Valentine’s Day.

By the time I went over to Zek and Demoncrat’s flat that evening to see what wonders the evening might hold… he was a wreck. He’d spent virtually the entire day on the phone with Pipes, who was a little unstable in the best of times and who’d taken this opportunity to completely lose her mind — every time he’d hang up, he’d get a call back within three minutes from a screaming, weeping, inconsolable and virtually incoherent now-ex-girlfriend. Demoncrat was preparing for an evening out with his own girlfriend du jour, so when I walked in Zek looked at me and said, “I need lots of beers.” Given the romantic wreckage I’d spent the better part of the previous year trying to crawl out of – and most of that day trying not to think about – I readily agreed.

The previous week, we’d shared a lot of drinks — but the spirit was lighthearted, fun, and explicitly carefree. This evening… was something different altogether. The mood was dark, dark, dark. Zek didn’t want to talk things over, and I didn’t want to ask. So we drank. A half-dozen pints at pub #1. A quick stop over at pub #2, our regular haunt: “What’s up?” “Zek and Pipes broke up.” “Oh. Let me get you a pint.” A few pints later, we headed downtown. Someone was playing a concert. Who? It didn’t matter then, and it doesn’t matter now. More pints. More pints. More pints. Demoncrat showed up. More pints. More pints.

Eventually, we emerged from the club into the late February evening. The rain was brutal, and the world swam around me in great, incomprehensible swirls of light and noise. We decided to head to a chipper — solid food to soak up whatever was coursing through us. Lampposts repeatedly leapt in front of me, causing me to swerve wildly to avoid collision. Zek navigated the city similarly: unsteadily, unhappily, filled with rage and lager.

I remember sitting down at a table with Zek and Demoncrat, water dripping out of our hair onto the cheeseburgers that had somehow appeared in front of us. Demoncrat recounted his date — an evening that went nowhere in a relationship that did the same. He seemed indifferent. Zek just sat there, not talking, taking small bites, staring out into the rain. I… I just felt confused, and a little lost. Disoriented, mostly.

In time, Zek and Demoncrat headed back to their flat, I to mine. Honestly, I’m not sure how I made it back intact.

But I did.

Looking back, it’s clear that evening pushed me over some kind of an edge — or, maybe, pushed me back away from one. I never again came close to drinking that much, and while I won’t say that the anger and everything else that surged through me (and Zek) that night magically went away… I don’t think it ever really mattered as much again, to either of us.

From a conversation about buying new vs. used:

Me: “…of course, you’ve also got to wonder if it’s just a matter of time before your radiator cracks, or your tranny falls out, or your…”

Sporty: “My what?”

Me: (after thinking things over for a moment) “Tranny. As in, transmission. As in, the potential need to replace your transmission.”

Sporty: (cackling) “That makes more sense than what I was thinking.”

Did I mention that I actually had a chance to go to Game 2 vs. Cleveland at Fenway Park? True story, although the fact that I missed it, in retrospect, turned out to be something of a mixed blessing.

One of TheWife’s coworkers was having a cocktail party, and as TheWife reasoned that this’d provide us with an excuse to get a sitter and go out to dinner first… we did just that. Unfortunately, about half an hour after we left a friend of mine called our house trying to reach us. He got my in-laws, who said we were out at dinner, and he chose not to leave a message. In fact, I didn’t even find out that he’d called until late Sunday morning. But I KNOW he had tix, and I KNOW he was calling to invite me. In fact, I know the guy who he called up and took to the game instead of me, because we had a playdate with them and their kids on Sunday afternoon… and he didn’t show up, because (as his wife said) “He’s too tired. You know, from being at Fenway until 2am last night.”

Where was I instead, missing this remarkable opportunity to go to what would have been my first-ever playoff game at Fenway? Trapped in cocktail party hell: sitting next to a bunch of vaguely bitter, dead-dull programmer-types, eating terrible party food, catching occasional glimpses of the game on their TV, and trying not to get caught staring deep into the hostess’ cleavage.

(And no, the cleavage didn’t make the evening worthwhile. Trust me on this. The fact that it was there – and my eyes were irrevocably drawn toward it – does not, by definition, translate to it being a good thing. It was a cleavage train wreck — I wanted to look away, but could not. Say it with me: “The horror… the horror…“)

Bad night, all the way around.

1. My twin daughters running around the house in their new Hallowe’en costumes last weekend, making animal noises and giggling hysterically. If I had a heart, it would have melted all over my couch.

2. In the midst of a 24-hour period in which I enjoyed nearly 8 hours of driving to-and-from nearly 8 hours of on-site meetings with a client, punctuated by a really, really unfortunate encounter with a stone wall that came out of nowhere to savage my rear bumper… I discovered a place offering Dogfish Head’s Punkin Ale on tap. Let’s say that again: it was on tap. Sweet God… it was on tap.

3. Apple crisp. Remember my alcoholic blueberry crisp recipe? Probably not, as I don’t think anyone actually made it besides me. Anyhow… last weekend, I recreated it, replacing the blueberries with lots of thin, scalloped apples and replacing the bourbon with a tablespoon or three of apple brandy.

Good lord. It’s autumn in a bowl, y’all.

4. Foliage. That’s right: it’s October in New England. This week’s rain notwithstanding… is there a more beautiful time to be anywhere than October in New England? I know things are already beginning to go gangbusters north and west of here, but even in Boston’s fabulous MetroWest area the colors are really starting to show.

5. Playoff baseball… and the fact that this year, playoff baseball is still relevant to my life. These next few weeks may turn out to be either golden and wonderful or profoundly scarring. Either way, I’m getting ready to spend a lot of time yelling at my TV.

6. The 2007 New England Patriots. Yeah, I know they’re not going to go 16-0… but man, what a joy it is to watch this team every weekend. I can’t remember ever having felt this all-over-happy about a Boston sports team while the season was still in session. If you can’t appreciate the artistry with which they’re executing both offensively and defensively, week-in and week-out… it’s probably time to give up the pretense of being a football fan.

7. The discovery that this is coming out just before Thanksgiving.

(Am I wrong to be giddy with excitement?)

The only thing better than sucking down a powerfully Patron-soaked margarita at lunchtime with a friend and colleague whom you just swiped from a competitor, thereby virtually crippling them while putting yourself in a position wherein ruling the world with an iron fist has suddenly become a distinct possibility? Margaritas #s 2 and 3.

Mmm. Good times.

Item 1) Rabbit succumbs to temptation.

Item 2) Butterfly is caught red-handed. “I blame society,” she explains.

Item 3) TheHurricane demonstrates the dangers of low-hanging branches.

GILF, courtesy of TheCEO.

(dropping face into hands)