Happy National Tequila Day! (also, Happy Cheap Marketing Ploy Day!)

Well, today is National Tequila Day, a day whose origin we traced back to the maker of a particular tequila, who, in a recent survey determined that "84% of respondents were interested in learning how to mix easy-to-make, creative cocktails with top-shelf tequila", the same 84%, not coincidentally, who were likely given repeated assurances that a free case of the stuff would arrive at their doors if they agreed to such a sentiment.

Here is a handy '5 Tips on How Not to Be a Jackass' when consuming it, from our friends at www.drinkplanner.com

To mark this festive occasion, and to honor Patrick Swayze's heroic battle with pancreatic cancer, we thought we'd share our Top 10 Coolest Bartenders of All Time for those who missed it the first time around.

Salut!
The Shark Guys

[Editor's Note: Apparently Friday is 'National Scotch Day' but since our Google fingers are tired, we'll leave it to you to track down its similarly suspect press release origin]

Hopping MADD at Grand Theft Auto

Gaming has suddenly vaulted into the world's third most popular solitary pursuit, second only to the more cost-effective, not to mention better bang for for your entertainment buck, masturbation, and of course, sleep---the latter engaged in to a lesser extent by gamers, the former much more so for reasons obvious to anyone but gamers.

As we noted previously, in our post 'Drink & Drive your way through Grand Theft Auto' the latest entry in the infamous Grand Theft Auto series has many critics wondering how many more banana peels line that already slippery slope toward social upheaval, not to mention a full-on revival of Vaudeville comedy.

The world's foremost ribbon dissemination organization, Mothers Against Drunk Driving ha recently petitioned the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) to "reclassify Grand Theft Auto IV as an 'Adults Only' title" in reaction to the inclusion of drunk driving in the role-playing game, which allows you to basically run the gamut of antisocial behaviors that would garner both a pat on the back from Eliot Spitzer and a chest bump from your local Cripp.

Apparently, the virtual imbibing of alcohol in the game, (which augments the very real smoking of weed that usually goes along with this sort of activity), blurs the screen and complicates the driving controls---which seem to us a very realistic admonishment, but to MADD is a trivialization of the very serious issue that is driving while impaired.

Be that as it may, the Dukes of Hazard dirt ramp-like leap in logic that a fantasy pursuit dictates how people behave in reality, is one in which we're not ready to make--as our viewing of thousands of horror films and our, as of this writing, failure to commit any comparable acts of butchery, will attest.

While this kind of leisure pursuit offer little in the way of redeeming social value, neither for that matter, does the music of Nickelback (whose singer, apropos of nothing, was recently sentenced for DUI).

A thumbs up to all our gamer friends, down to MADD and speaking of digits....watch out for that carpal tunnel.

Drink and exercise your way to a longer life: study.

Like a bird feeding its young, news media regurgitate press releases before flying off to crap on other stories (such as wild parties thrown by Aussie teens that necessite a police helicopter response). We Shark Guys, however, offer the kind of sober analysis typically seen just prior to pitchers of stale beer arriving at your table.

So, instead of focusing on that story, or some drunk who stumbled his way onto the property of English footballer Michael Owen and was chased by security personnel all over the finely manicured manor grounds of his 17^th century estate, we decided to spotlight physical activity of a different sort.

If the only exercise you get in a week is the mad dash to your PC when you’re instant messaged, you’re going to want to stamp out that cigarette (preferably on your tongue, just like in the movies), crack open a window a touch, breathe deep and take note as Danish researchers recently asked, “If you don't want to exercise too much, can you trade it for one to two drinks per day and be fine?” (a fine question indeed, replacing the one that was on our noggins this morning, "What did Amy Winehouse do with all the hair from her bee-hive?)

In the latest issue of the European Heart Journal, researchers looked at nearly 12,000 Danes in a 20-year study and we’ve distilled the results for you like a fine cognac which coincidentally, we're sipping this morning to go along with our breakfast oatmeal (the cheap stuff goes IN it).

First, the bad news, the 'something rotten in the state of Denmark' if you will: you still have to exercise, and according to the lead researcher, "there's absolutely no proof of a preventative and protective effect [of alcohol] before age 45."

The good news is though, that if you actually make it to this advanced age and aren't killed by the drink or a sedentary lifestyle, you can exercise and imbibe in moderation, extending your mortality to Keith Richards like proportions while at the same time lowering heart disease risk. There's even an added benefit: you can even outlive all those finger-wagging abstainers as study participants who didn't drink and didn't exercise (and who are likely contacting their lawyers right now to launch a lawsuit against the Danish researchers) had double the risk for heart disease as those who did exercise and drink moderately.

You know what they say, "abstinence makes the heart a goner".

New York Jets Fans: Keeping up with the Jets set

Considering all of the potential exposés that it could have chosen to break – like once and for all bringing those blasted all-nude RV and boat shows into the open – it seems strange that the New York Times would instead choose to shake the earth by revealing that men who attend NFL games like to get drunk and hoot at women. That same conclusion, no doubt drawn before the reporter strapped on his visor and went to work, could have been borne out with far less effort by just popping over to the house of any Sunday football loving Joe Lunchbox with a case of beer and a copy of Lusty Luanne’s Lunar Calendar 2007/2008 in tow.

A Times reporter did go to a New York Jets game a little over a week ago and when it came to half-time and most of the crowd had gathered on the pedestrian ramps of Giants Stadium’s Gate D, cruelly ignoring the lifetime achievement award or some-such being given to one “Curtis Martin”, he went to see what all the fuss was about. He found hundreds of men gathered on the ramps, whooping it up and looking not unlike rows of lifers out of a prison movie lustily welcoming the weak-looking thin guy who has just sauntered into their lives.

The Times reporter catalogued the jeering bunch’s requests that each passing woman oblige the crowd by giving them a gander at her Mardi Gras finest, which, to the hooting delight of the hordes, some did. One such obliging lassie managed to take the starch out of this “exposé” somewhat when she told the Times reporter, “I don’t care… I love my body and I like what I have, so let everybody share it.”

The President of the New Jersey Senate, Richard J. Codey, showing that he keeps in touch with the needs of his people, in that he reads the New York Times and circles anything apropos, was quick to promise action and heap condemnation on the unruly goings-on at Jets games, even throwing out a witticism that media outlets could repeat until their audiences vomited in unison: “It seems like for some Jet fans, that Gate D stands for drunk and disgusting.”

Well, according to this more recent column, the party over at “Gate Drunk and Disgusting” has quieted down of late, with more than 50 security guards in yellow jackets and 25 state troopers assigned there and no arrests made during the Jets last home game.

And while we would never condone the use of verbal pressure and liquor to convince a woman to bear her breasts outside of the state of Louisiana and/or a Girls Gone Wild video, we are saddened to think that these new security precautions may also mean the end of another Jets half-time tradition “Da Money”. In this far funnier ritual, those on the upper level of Gate D throw dollar bills down to ground level. Sooner or later someone passes by, spots the cash and goes to pick it up – but before the little money grubber can thank his stars for this unexpected good fortune, a shower of beer and garbage, as well as taunts and verbal abuse, reigns down on him from above. Now that is the kind of sport we could enjoy.

Energy Drinks: A lot of (Red) Bull?

We first took notice of Red Bull in a Thai red-light district. Okay, let’s rephrase that so it appears less sordid. We first took notice of Red Bull in a Thai red-light district where a bloody kick-boxing card was being held. Better. Alright, never mind. We were in attendance, VIP section, when the ref was conveniently looking the other way and one of the combatants took one for the team, right smack in the Red Bull logo where one hopes the Muay Thai tomato can in question was sporting a protective cup. (Said logo was placed nearer to home base than it is in the accompanying photo).

Speaking of cups, and in tribute of segues that hit you like a Muay Thai roundhouse to the head, we Shark Guys drink our coffee black -- you know, like real men. None of this foam that looks like it would line the mouth of that German Shepherd that guards the lumberyard. As coffee purists we’d never really taken notice of any other caffeinated beverages like Red Bull and generally steered clear of those who’d consume it, thinking them the type of people with far too much energy --and much of it misguided-- to begin with anyway.

Doing some investigative work though, which may or may not have included an ill-advised downing of a can of it during an amphetamine bender (for research purposes only you understand, and for safety reasons we may or may not have had a guy in tow who claimed to have done a year of med school in the Caribbean), we tentatively concluded that it could indeed be described as "an energy drink". However, given we’re pretty energetic already and known to fire off a few daybreak rounds from a rooftop balcony after being up for the duration of the night, we were indisposed to blaming the drink for this particularly animated state.

If you don't already know this (perhaps you were the last graduate of that nunnery before it got shuttered), mixing caffeinated beverages with alcohol makes many a delightful tonic. (Indeed, several Shark Book blogs have been written with the authors using dizzying centrifugal force to get just the right Cuba Libre mix in one hand and typing with the other) It's also the conduit for getting cheap whiskey down many a gullet as well as getting the irredeemably unattractive the sexual attention they don't usually garner—but now that the Coke or Pepsi in a highball has been replaced by something researchers have described as (like pretty much everything else a human can ingest) "dangerous to your health" and as potent as three cups of coffee at once.

Apparently the top watchdog, or monger of fear depending on who you ask, the FDA, does not subject dietary supplements to safety and efficacy testing prior to approval, meaning that the full slate of ingredients in energy drinks, much like hep A at your favorite lunch spot, are not fully screened.

The Shark Guys

Beer cheaper than water – And that's a bad thing?

The UK’s Daily Mail, fast becoming The Shark Guys newspaper of choice in terms of rich source material, recently ran a lengthy double-byline investigative piece (full story here) into the rising trend of supermarkets selling their own brands of beer for less than their bottled water. This came hot on the high-heels of an earlier exposé into another alcoholic scourge: those midriff and visible panty-line revealing Facebook girls gone wild, (a story we covered here).

The Daily Mail reports that supermarket chains Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Asda are selling their own brands of beer at 22p (US$0.46) a can, which is less per litre than it costs to buy the stores’ mineral water and cola, and, in what would seem to be pure hyperbole given the alcohol content of the beer is between 2 and 3 percent, “cheap enough to allow someone to get drunk for just £1” (more on how they sent a reporter out in order to prove that claim later).

Competition between the three supermarket chains led to the low price, with the stores taking on up to an 8p per can loss just to keep up with one another. All three chains now offer the cheapest beer on their rosters for 50p a litre, while mineral water costs between 56p and 92p a litre depending on the store. (The latter price is of course the real scandal, but we'll leave the great bottled-water debate [your wallet and good ole' mother earth are better off with the tap] to blogs such as this one).

Many readers, especially those from Ontario, Canada where a government monopoly necessitates a drive out to the hinterlands for beer restocking, will see all silver-lining and no cloud when it comes to having such easily accessible and cheap booze at the ready. The Mail, however, did not write this one as a feel-good piece, but rather took the occasion to sound several alarm bells.

The main concern was that the youth would put down their alcopops and rush for the cheap lager, which, we presume, is typically the purview of your older recreational drunk. One public health advocate whose comments were included by the Mail in an attempt to strengthen this point came out with an interesting bit of armchair teenage psychology when he ventured that teens would "think that if it's so cheap, it must be OK". The reported low to which Finland has sunk (who knew!) following a 40% cut in its alcohol taxes was also thrown in for extra points.

The Mail even went to the trouble of sending out one of its reporters to drink the cheap beer and report back on its effects in an accompanying piece entitled"How I - a twenty-something woman - got drunk on £1 worth of the 22p lager" (that story here). The reporter, a 27-year-old woman who stands 5 feet tall (and is not as wide as she is tall), might have seemed an odd choice for this test, but here were some selected observations from her afternoon on Asda's own-brand three percent lager (on which she spent £1 hence the headline):

"The first taste is disgusting - a mouthful of gassy, foul-tasting liquid. I don't drink lager often, but even I can tell this is scraping the barrel. The first can is hard to drink but I don't notice too much of a change in myself."

Later, she's loosened up a bit but appears somewhat self-conscious...

"Two cans down and I realise that I am wittering, getting more talkative and, I fear, slightly boring."

Ah, the glorious third can, now things are rocking:

"Into the third can I start feeling more affectionate and my inhibitions are lowered - swinging my legs over my chair, I find myself telling the photographer what a fabulous chap he is and how much I love working with him."

However, those who would be thanking their lucky stars for this, the cheapest of cheap dates, might be put off by the likes of the following:

"The gassiness is getting to me and I keep emitting rather unladylike burps."

And it all goes to pot on the last can and a half:

"On my fourth can, I am getting a bit aggressive - pointing at the photographer as I make another "fascinating" comment and swearing more than I ever would in polite company. By the last half, I have definitely had enough. My voice is heavy and slurred, my limbs feel floppy, my eyes have gone droopy and I have lost the ability to concentrate on anything for longer than a couple of minutes. Worryingly, the lager tastes OK, even nice, and I feel as though I could carry on drinking it if asked."

And, with that, comes a moral to the story of the type that is slightly subtler than a jackhammer in the ear:

"I am a 27-year-old woman and, although only 5ft, am used to drinking alcohol and can deal with the changes it causes. But take each of the physical and emotional side-effects that I felt - and imagine the effect they would have on a teenager."

The Shark Guys