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Oh, the Things You’ll Learn at the Pizza Joint!

Saturday night, the missus and I struck off with another couple for a hot night on the town. Which involved a pizzeria dinner, a few beers, and home by eleven. Yes, we’re old and married and lame. I know. Shut up, shut up, shut up.

Anyway, while dining at said pizzariffic establishment, we conversed about several subjects. And I learned many things from my dinner companions. For instance:

#1. I learned that my friend watches the show Numb3rs.

Now, I’ve got no real issue with this. It’s not like I’m the TV police (although, keep reading; a couple of learnings further, maybe I am). I watch a lot of crap and nonsense on television, certainly. But I can’t watch Numb3rs. Lord, I’ve tried, and I just can’t do it.

See, first there’s the name. Numb3rs. Why the ‘3’, CBS? Honestly, now — what’s up with the l33t 5p33k? You’re the old fart network. You know it, I know it, we all know it. NBC’s still feeding pap to the Baby Boomers, ABC finally got in the game with the reality shows, and FOX has the teeny boppers. The smart ones, anyway, who know better than to watch UPN. Jesus, were we so numbnutted at that age?

Anyway, cutesy title aside, I can’t stomach the show. And I like shows that follow the formula, too — the find a mystery, gather clues, piece together the puzzle sort of shows. You know, like Law and Order, or House, or Blue’s Clues.

But the writing on this Numb3rs show is unwatchable. Unwatchable, I say! Look, I get it — the kid’s good with numbers. When clues involving wind speed calculations and fluid dynamics and the Pythagorean theorem come up, you’re going to call the kid. That’s what we couch potatoes call ‘the entire damned premise for your whole suckass show‘. So don’t beat us over the head with it. You don’t need dialogue like:

Detective #1: Hey, Joe, lookit this. I think the murderer left it.

Detective #2: What is it? It that a… back scratcher?

Detective #1: Nah, I don’t think so. A shoe shiner, maybe?

Detective #2: No, wait. It’s one of them abacus dealies.

Detective #1: Oooh. An abacus. That’s, like, a math thing, right?

Detective #2: Yeah, yeah — some math doohickey.

Detective #1: Well, jeez, Joe, I don’t know nothing ’bout math.

Detective #2: Yeah, better call in the kid. It’s a math thing.

For the love of Euler, just get the fuck on with it already!

And if it’s not that, then they’re waxing poetic about all the ways math affects our lives, and how smart the mathemeticians of old were, and how if you don’t have a certificate degree in advanced calculus, you’ll never get laid again, and — look. If I wanted to learn, I’d watch Sesame Street. I don’t. I want to see a cop show, and maybe see a hooker stuffed into a dumpster. Cut the chit-chat, and get Columbo in here. I got no time for this bullshit.

#B. I learned that my friend thinks my favorite beer is ‘too hoppy’.

Now, again, I can’t fault him for this. First of all, he can drink what he likes. And we happen to agree on one of the best beers in the world. Plus, he hangs out with me, so he’s obviously a man of great substance with discerning tastes.

(Never mind that he wore shorts that night so he wouldn’t have to put on shoes. That’s another story.)

So, nothing against my friend here. It just leaves more of the very best beer in the world for me. And that’s a good thing.

But I would argue the point that it’s even possible, people, for a beer to be ‘too hoppy‘. Now, I’m not going to lie to you — the Hop Devil is an extremely hoppy beer. If hops were lemons, you’d be puckered up like a hairy-moled grandma at Christmastime after one sip. But that’s what makes it so darned tasty. ‘Hops’ equals ‘good’, in the same way that ‘money’ or ‘health’ or ‘strippers’ do — you simply can’t have ‘too much’.

That’s my story, anyway. But don’t you believe it, folks. If you run into a beer that’s ‘too hoppy’, you just stop drinking it, drop that delicious brewski into a mailbox addressed to me, and try something else. I’ll take care of those for you.

#Last-but-not-least: I learned that another friend went to a party… and played a Golden Girls drinking game.

Holy mother of all that is incontinent and wrinkly… people DO that?!

Again, I’m in no position to judge, really. I can understand drinking to a television show. I’ve done it, myself — to The Grinch That Stole Christmas, and Blue’s Clues (it’s good for everything!), and even The Smurfs.

(Oh, don’t look at me that way. How do you spend your Saturday mornings, eh? Ten bucks and a shot of tequila say mine are more fun. Yeah.)

But drinking to the Golden Girls implies watching the Golden Girls… and where the hell’s the fun in that? Hell, I could barely keep my breakfast down watching that crap sober; how am I supposed to hold in the hurl after a few dozen adult beverages? Not possible.

Honestly, when I first heard about this, I couldn’t think of even one less appropriate pairing of ‘enjoyable activity’ and ‘television show’. But I’m not here to let things go, people — oh, no, no. So, I gave it some thought, and came up with these:

• Watching Desperate Housewives at a wedding shower
• Taking high tea during a Jerry Springer marathon
• Spanking it to Oprah. Big Oprah.

Wow. That was a lot to learn on one Saturday night, eh? Maybe if I’d have hung out in more pizza joints, I wouldn’t have had so much trouble in college. Lesson learned.