I loved and miss college so much. As a young student I had some of the rowdiest times ever partying with fellow co-eds at the University Of Illinois campus in fabulous Champaign, Illinois. Those were the days, I tell ya.

So like a loser who hangs onto the past I get really excited every time some publication comes out with it’s list of Top Party Schools. I’m always sad that U of I never makes the list but get so excited to see who made it. I especially love the List of top party schools by the Princeton Review because you have to figure that the nerds at Princeton aren’t out partying and have nothing better to do than study who else is out drinking, having sex and getting into all sorts of mischief.

Although they’re direct Bog Ten rivals, the good kids at Penn State have taken home this years top honors. Congrats kids, I’m proud of you. Just make sure that after a long night of keg stands, beers bongs, multiple shots and all sorts of wild shenanigans you spend your day hung over playing video games for real money, cash and prizes at www.worldgaming.com so that you can support that next beer run!

Tags: alcohol, beer, co-eds, college, list of tope party schools, party, Princeton Review, video games. NCAA 10, worldgaming

What’s up with all these brawls at Chuck E. Cheese?!?!?

The WSJ has a great feature story analyzing the trend of police getting called to local Chuck E. Cheese’s franchises to break up fights.

Who would have thought a child-oriented birthday party location with pizza, ball pits, and arcade games would cause such a ruckus? The WSJ unleashes one of the greatest paragraphs in all of news-writing history with this little diddy:

The biggest melee broke out in April, when an uninvited adult disrupted a child’s birthday party. Seven officers arrived and found as many as 40 people knocking over chairs and yelling in front of the restaurant’s music stage, where a robotic singing chicken and the chain’s namesake mouse perform.

Apparently when you add a liquor license to sell wine and beer in a place where over-protective parents meet ‘the high emotions of a kid’s birthday party’, it’s all a recipe for disaster.

At the request of local police many of Chuck’s 538 national locations have stopped serving alcohol and even added security personnel carrying pistols.

Are you kidding me?

All of these startling new revelations about a place I used to love to go as a kid are kind of making me want to stop by again and spend an afternoon playing games, getting drunk, eating pizza, and getting in a good old fashioned brawl right after I run up the ski ball ramp and drop a few balls in the 100 slots.

Maybe it’s all just a clever reverse marketing campaign? I mean, you never would have thought nude photos and sex tapes would help a celebrity’s public image, but it has. Perhaps, CEC is following the Paris Hilton school of marketing the best it can?

Tags: alcohol, brawls, Chuck E. Cheese, fights, police, worldgaming, WSJ

Any old idiot can use a shaker to mix drinks, but it takes a supreme idiot to assemble and operate the Chugulug Drinks Factory. The Chugulug (not sure if I dig the name or not) is a series of interchangeable tubes that connect a variety of specialized compartments (such as the Ice Chamber and Vortex Funnel) to mix and chill your dink through a 10 step process that looks utterly impossible to clean.

Then again, at just $38, who gives a hoot, it wouldn’t make the worst self-deprecating centerpiece for your next shindig.

Tags: alcohol, Chugulug Drinks Factory, mixer, party, worldgaming

Who cares about stupid little things like layoffs, foreclosures, and all the other depressing things our economy is throwing up as long as we have alcohol. There’s a reason why people are still willing to spend what little hard-earned cash they still have on booze…because it’s the cause and solution to all of life’s problems!!!

It could also be one of the only true recession-proof industries.

A recent report by the AP boils it down to a few simple rules:

1. When people are under financial stress, they’re more likely to frequent bars
2. When economic times are tough, people drink more alcohol.
3. In a downturn, folks will cut back first on other purchases before they give up booze.
4. Maybe we’re more complicated creatures than conventional wisdom suggests.

Times are tough, so like most people I’ll cut back to single-ply toilet paper and generic mac ‘n cheese, but still cling to my bottle of Jack.

The report also explains that there is data suggesting that rather than buying their usual mid-priced bottle of wine during these dire times, many switch over to a similarly priced bottle of hard-liquor to get the job done. Essentially paying the same amount, but getting wayyy more hammered to cope. 

That merlot is good but lets spring for the Skol vodka this time hunny! 

Is that a sign of alcoholism, or just a means of coping for some people?

Anyways, the alcohol business, as a whole, appears to do relatively well (or at least hold on to their profits) in times of a near national downturn in consumer spending. One of the reasons for this is because unlike cigarettes, junk food, and other luxuries, the alcohol business offers a wide variety of increasingly cheaper alternatives to get your fix.

Case in point – if you’re a vodka man, you may step down to imported beer, and then to domestic beer, then to light beers, and eventually you’ll be getting just as drunk while plowing through 40s of OE on the street corner.

Cheers : )

Tags: alcohol, AP, beer, recession proof, sales, vodka, worldgaming