Before going out tonight, I first had to get ready.

Tonight was going to be the big beer-off between two of my all-time favorites; Rogue Chocolate stout and Upland Chocolate Stout.

I was way too excited over a couple of beers being on tap at the same time, but I'm bottling everything else up and I need to have some outlet for my emotions, so fuck off.

Besides, I take my duties as unofficial Rich O's beer reviewer very seriously. So seriously, in fact, that I had VigilanteGirl help me put together a special uniform for tonight's activities.

Behold me in all my scruffy and/or evil glory:

If you look closely enough (not at my crotch you perverts) you may notice a reflective patch on my shirt. This shirt normally says Irish Stout Official Taster on it but tonight, for one night only, the word Irish has been replaced:

At around 4:30, I called the bar and asked Roger, the owner, if he was going to shatter my dreams again. He assured me that both of my favorite chocolate stouts were indeed on tap.

Having thus confirmed that my mission was still a go, I arrived at Rich O's a little after 5:00 PM. Right off the bat, I checked the board:

Yay! They were both listed!

Did I mention that I was excited?

Well, I was.

I ordered a half glass of Rogue Chocolate Stout (318) and a half glass of Upland Chocolate Stout (70), which will hereafter in this entry be referred to simply as Rogue and Upland, and I sat in the throne with my beers and my notebook to begin my beer-off.

With both beers in front of me, calling to me, I tried to remain as scientific and impartial as I could. I alternated each beer through each of the following tests:

Color

Upland: Jet Black
Rogue: Jet Black
Conclusion: Tie

Head

Upland: Beige, faded quickly to a thin coating
Rogue: Light brown, lasted forever
Conclusion: Rogue easily wins this contest

Aroma

Upland: Good chocolate aroma, a bit sharp when inhaled deeply
Rogue: Rich and malty chocolate aroma
Conclusion: Rogue easily wins this contest

Flavor

Upland: Dryer than I remembered, with a touch of coffee but mostly a slightly bitter chocolate - yummy
Rogue: Tastes like it smells, rich and malty and chocolately - fucking yummy
Conclusion: Rogue easily wins this contest

Mouthfeel

Upland: A decent thickness, more syrupy than anything else
Rogue: Thick and creamy
Conclusion: Rogue wins this contest by a nose

Overall Winner

Rogue wins in a landslide.

I want to make this perfectly clear: The Upland Chocolate Stout is a fucking fantastic beer. On any night in which the Rogue wasn't on tap, the Upland would almost definitely be my favorite. There's not a damn thing wrong with the Upland - it's just no Rogue. And that's not such a bad thing. I, for example, am no Brad Pitt, but give me a try and you'll keep coming back. Unless Brad just happens to be in the room, then I'm screwed.

Please read this crap from July:

don't say i didn't warn you

and the following entry:

some of your guesses were pretty funny

Okay.

Saturday night after I left my grandmother's house, I went to a secret thing. It was all very hush-hush, and I felt privileged to even know about it, let alone be allowed to attend.

After that I went to do some more secret stuff.

I feel like a spy or something.

Or a criminal.

So because everything's a big secret, this entry will just be to say that I had myself a couple of pints of Bell's Double Cream Stout (80), and then a glass of De Dolle Stille Nacht (32). All were yummy.

Today I watched a couple of movies, then I typed The World's Longest And Most Boring E-Mail to RockGirl, then I watched a couple more movies.

Right now I'm getting ready to watch another movie, and I'm drinking a Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier (247), one of several yummy and/or exotic-sounding beers that I've stocked into my fridge lately. I had, before the secret thingy presented itself, planned to just come home Saturday night and play pool and drink beer, so that's why I've all of a sudden got beer in my house.

If there's one thing I've learned in the past couple of years it's this: Shit happens.

Sometimes there are no logical explanations. Sometimes there is no reasonable justification. Sometimes there are no acceptable excuses.

Sometimes, shit just happens and that's all there is to it.

Some of us will fight the inevitable until we're so beaten down that we can't even remember what we were fighting against.

Some of us, however, will recognize and bow to the inevitable, and let the chips fall where they may afterwards.

The inevitable is fucking awesome sometimes.

But other times, other times you look around you, and you see all those damn chips scattered all over the place, and you realize that somebody had better clean up this fucking mess.

You get one guess as to who gets to clean it up.

Actions have consequences, and just because something is inevitable doesn't mean that everyone is going to understand why it happened. That it had to happen. That if it hadn't happened today it would have happened tomorrow, or next week, or next year.

So I'll spend some time cleaning up this mess, and I'll try to remember that maybe it is going to happen again, but there's no reason that it can't wait a while. If it's really inevitable, then it's probably worth that wait.

It was fucking awesome though.

Once I left my sister's house, and the holiday festivities therein, I headed down to Rich O's for HatGirl's birthday celebration.

SCRIBBLERESQUE PARENTHETICAL THOUGHT: I was only a few seconds from Dina's house when she called me to tell me that I had a taillight out on my truck. Since this is a time of year that cops are just dying for any excuse to pull people over, I stopped at my house and switched to my Intrepid before continuing to Rich O's. Now this morning I can't figure out how to get the damn bulb out so I can replace it.

Rich O's was, as expected, pretty fucking crowded. After a quick nod to my friends I checked out the blackboard, just to confirm that what I'd been promised on Tuesday was indeed happening on Friday.

It wasn't.

There was supposed to be Rogue Chocolate Stout and Upland Chocolate Stout, both on tap at the same time.

I'd been looking forward to it all week. I'd been telling everyone I knew about this special occasion. Mouths all over Floyd County were watering at the thought of these two beers, side-by-side, vying for the title of Best Fucking Stout On Planet Earth.

But nooooooooooooooooooooooo!

I spotted Roger, the owner, holding court at the bar, so I went and talked to him about this lack of chocolate stouts. He assured me that both kegs are on the premises, and that either Monday or Tuesday they'll be on tap. Yay!

So, once I'd gotten over my initial disappointment, I selected something from the board.

Bell's Special Double Cream Stout (20)

(draft) A nice roasty chocolate flavor. The extra alcohol, as compared to similar stouts, seemed unnecessary to me, and annoyed me a little. A beer this good doesn't need the alcohol gimmick.

The front area is just weird. I don't think I like it out there. But after RealTrainGirl left I pretty much stayed out there for the rest of the night, mainly watching HatGirl and her sister play some card game that I've never heard of called "speed."

Since the Saturnalia board was actually looking a little boring to me, my second beer was the same as the first; another Bell's (40).

My last beer was a half-pint of Guinness (1000).

I didn't say this would be an interesting entry. I had fun, but a couple of things happened that gave me pause. I won't be writing about them here.

Every year I say I'm going to stop giving out gift certificates, and go back to legitimate gifts. Then, every year when I ask my sisters for a wish-list, they tell me that they want gift certificates because they love shopping so much and they never get to shop for themselves and please don't stop the gift certificates.

So, every year, I end up giving out gift certificates again.

This year my laziness expanded. I gave gift certificates to both of my sisters, my niece Bethany, my nephew Cory, my sister's Neisha's husband Chris, and my sister Dina's fiancé Kenny. This is what everybody wanted, but it really does seem very lazy to me.

I always give money to Neisha so she can shop for "my" gifts for her kids. So I'm always just as surprised as they are by what I give them. Like that one year when I gave Devynne a bunch of panties. Not creepy at all.

I always get my grandmother the same thing every year - some Red Door perfume - so that's no effort.

The only person who gets any effort from me at all is the youngest - my nephew Gehrid. For him I actually went and bought toys.

Anyway, last night was Christmas for the Siltz siblings and their kids.

Since my sisters are the only ones that buy me anything, I usually do pretty well. I got a book I'd specifically asked for, and some other pool and/or beer related things that are quite cool.

All of Dina's gifts made her cry. Except the gift certificate of course. I think next year we're just going to hold Dina down and pinch her since she likes crying so much.

Tonight is the annual Christmas Eve At Grandma's House, where what's left of my father's side of the family gets together and takes pictures of each other. I'm sure that my grandmother will cry a lot when she opens her gifts. Even the perfume which she always knows she's getting. My dad used to get it for her.

Tomorrow I get to sleep in.

So you jump from one relationship to the next, and eventually you find one that you stick with. One that actually lasts a little while. Time passes, and one day you decide that you're in love.

How fucking convenient. You're in love with the one that you're with. What are the odds of that?

But that's the way it works, isn't it? You take what you can get, and maybe, just maybe, you find yourself having grown so accustomed to another person that you mistake affection for love. Until you get tired of that person, then you decide that you've fallen out of love.

And the cycle repeats.

What a load of steaming horse shit.

I've got something to tell you. Whatever it was that you fell out of, it wasn't love.

Love is when you don't have a choice. Love is when you don't always have weeks or months or years to convince yourself that this time, it's for real. Love is when you deny your feelings, because this can't be happening, because it's too soon, because this person isn't right for me. Falling in love is not a process, it's an event. Love is when a switch inside you suddenly flips on and then breaks off so it can never be switched back.

And the real thing about love, the thing that keeps you awake at night, the thing that makes it the cruelest emotion of all - is that it's not always mutual.

Stings like a bitch, doesn't it?

So just keep playing your little game of relationship hopscotch. Keep telling yourself that eventually you'll find that special someone. And if you don't love that person at first, maybe you'll grow into it, maybe you'll learn to love that person. Maybe that person will learn to love you.

Good luck with that. Really. Everybody plays the same game, so somebody's bound to win every now and then. May as well be you.

Just do me a favor. Don't profess your love when it's a crush, or when it's convenient, or out of guilt, or when it's simply better than being alone. Don't do that.

Because sometimes, sometimes you'll tell me that you love me, and I'll actually believe you.

Happy Birthday to HatGirl! Yay!