Since I'm turning 21 next month...

You mean you've never had a drink?

I recommend starting fast and never giving up.

Go into a bar, order a Long Island Ice Tea. After that, order another Long Island Ice Tea. After that, it doesn't matter what you order.

a.

Come march 5, I will have the answer to "life, the universe, and everything".

[Picard] I warn you, I've always had a thing for older women. [/Picard]

Can you stop a hummingbird in midair?

Anyway, as far as years go...

"It's not the years, it's the mileage." - Indiana Jones

In addition to the water, be sure to eat something every so often. Peanuts or pretzels or whatever.

I should send you a bottle of my own brew.

Been homebrewing since 1994.

Only homebrew out of those mountians I'd be apt to go for would be 'shine. Some of the best in the country.
Damn revenooers!

You'd like what I got. Ales, lagers, and Mead. Nothing under 8% alc by weight.

tequila, and lots of it...


thats what my brother did the first time he drank. he had a great time.

Ah, I remember when I turned 21...it seems just like yesterday that I reported to General Washington....

edited for accuracy.

Did you guys know that many of the states do not specifically say that it is illegal for someone under 21 to drink alcohol, only the purchase and public possesion is illegal. I went through the process of being legal to drink and then not 3 different times until I turned 21. There are only 7 states where it is illegal by law to consume alcohol on private property, period. Many states allow it with exceptions, and 19 of them have no real law against consumption. I read up on all of this at one time because I stockpiled while I could for the dry times ahead. Look at the map near the bottom of this pagehttp://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/LegalDrinkingAge.html

Humans seem to put a lot of importance to the Age of 21.

Is it because of the substance called alcohol?

Galactus Arrives!!

They're either scattered all over the place since graduation or even worse goody two-shoes than I am. One wouldn't even help me learn to drive because she isn't twenty-five yet, and she's the only one of my friends who lives right down the street from me.

42?!?

drink recommendations:

JD and coke with a twist of lime
vodka, lemonade, twist of lime and a drop of angastota bitters
brandy alexander (chocolate milkshake with a kick!)
baileys and creme de menthe

and when you're a bit more used to the stuff, try and absinthe, vodka and coke.

When I turned 21 I was excited because I could legally buy a handgun.
I could already drink (age was 18 in Alaska at the time).

It was a Ruger .357 instead of a .44 mag Redhawk my buddies were buying. Either gun is too small if a brown bear attacks anyway, but a .357 is plenty for a black bear (in theory).

But a couple of months later when a black bear was trying get into the cottage I was in, all I could think of was "this is not enough gun - I'm going to piss him off and he'll kill me before he dies!"

I could already drink (age was 18 in Alaska at the time).

Lay off the booze and go for the hard stiff...

Some people don't feel that compelled to drink.

and they're the ones who drive the rest of us to it...

Um...how so? I never made judgements about people's drinking habits...well, not to their face, anyway. O_o

And seeing how broke I was growing up (One winter, I had to wear my summer clothes all the way through January), any spare money I had went to other needs like clothes or buying lunch somewhere other than the crap ass cafeteria lunches.

And seeing my mom never drank anything in front of me and my brother before I was ten (Due to her up-bringing), alcohol wasn't engrained as the end-all, be-all of experiences. Hell, she wouldn't even let me drink Asti at Thanksgiving this year.

Oh, well.

As I was gonna say to Clyde via rep (The rep gave up the ghost on me), Long Island Iced Teas are what I drink when I'm trying to get hammered quick, fast, and in a hurry. Hell, the last time I really tied one on I had six of those at a little local place and then we headed to the bar where I had five or twenty Crown and Sprites.

Oh, and since we're sharing our first drinking stories I might as well throw mine out there.

My two best friends kidnapped me on the night of my 21st birthday. We went to this tiny little bar in another town. I was young and dumb at the time having never had anything stronger than a few sips of my dad's beer when I was 8 or so. I know many of you will be shocked by their poor selection but I bellied up to the bar and asked the barmaid for the strongest thing they had neat.

She produced two shots of Seagram's VO and I downed both of them without hesitation. That's when we went to a table with two more and she'd bring two more every time one of my buddies would motion to her, he was paying the tab after all.

Well, after eight or ten shots I was expecting this world changing experience but I felt fine. But, I had to piss so I told my buddies that I was going to go find the bathroom. That's when it hit me. I stood up and the entire planet shifted 90 degrees to the left. If I hadn't slammed into a nearby wall I would have done a header right into the floor.

I managed to recover just enough to stagger to the bathroom and all I really remember was standing in front of a urinal and realizing that my aim wasn't all that great whilst drunk.

Over the course of the evening I had several, and I do mean several, more shots and my friends carried me out of there, one under each arm.

There's a night I barely remember...

D'UH?! Don't you live in SUNNY California??? How long is 'winter'? Like two weeks? Gimme a friggin' break!

Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder...

My hen night, I went to my former regular pub, where I knew most of the clientele. Everybody kept buying me drinks, I wound up having about 12 Pernod and lemonades (soft drinks in between, I'm not that stupid!)...
Luckily, the hen/stag nights were a Saturday, the wedding was a Monday...

I had to do a Google search to figure out what the heck you were talking about. What a weird name. That's not you in the photo on the right, is it?

Unfortunately, that was during '97-98 El Nino, and it rained three days out of five.

And you're thinking of Southern California, where they'll be treated to 80 degree Christmases every year. The Sacramento metro area isn't terrible as far as winter goes, compared to most other places in the states, and even within California (We'll get most of our rain in January), but it's still pretty nippy in nothing but a T-shirt, even with a jacket.

Oh c'mon Anna, that's simply not true.

It's only supposed to be 76 degrees this Christmas.