{"id":84,"date":"2009-09-08T14:42:40","date_gmt":"2009-09-08T20:42:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dudeimtellinya.com\/?p=84"},"modified":"2009-09-12T13:56:59","modified_gmt":"2009-09-12T19:56:59","slug":"bottoms-up-if-you-can-still-afford-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.dudeimtellinya.com\/?p=84","title":{"rendered":"Bottoms Up ! If you can still afford it&#8230;.."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dude, I&#8217;m tellin ya&#8230;&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>Before I even get into the pocket draining, depressing experience I just had, I want to give you a great referral on a website. A friend of mine just launched a website called <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ShareMyShot.com\">www.ShareMyShot.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>He posts recipes and reviews on tasty shot concoctions and encourages others to post theirs as well. He tells you exactly how to make the shots (including for multiple people\/multiple servings) and gives you an idea for the appropriate settings for the more fruity ones versus the harsher, &#8220;hair-on-your-chest&#8221; type of shots. Not all women like those\u00a0forementioned varieties.<\/p>\n<p>Check it out. It&#8217;s pretty cool. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ShareMyShot.com\">www.ShareMyShot.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Now on to the eye-opening life experience I just had. I had heard this price hike was going to be taking effect. I just didn&#8217;t realize it would hit me like a Mike Tyson uppercut. You know&#8230;..back when Mike Tyson was tough. Not like now.<\/p>\n<p>I just ran up to the liquor store for a fresh bottle of my favorite Kentucky whiskey. And I can tell you this right now&#8212;I&#8217;m not liking this huge Cook County tax increase that went into effect on September 1. Prior to today, the only alcohol purchase I made was a 12-pak of Rolling Rock to take with me to a recent Sunday BBQ. After all, we&#8217;re not animals over here. You can&#8217;t be rude and show up empty-handed. So I bought the twelve&#8217;r and honestly didn&#8217;t really even feel the tax punch that day. <em>{Author note: And I&#8217;d like to point out that because it took until 9\/8 for me to even go to the liquor store\u00a0in September, it should help prove that I do not frequent the place every day as rumored. That is only a myth being spread by my enemies}.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>But today, I needed to replenish the missing spot in my bar&#8217;s lineup. And up to this point, I had been paying $19.99 for a 1.75 of Jim Beam whiskey. Now it is $24.95 !! It basically went up $5.00 per bottle. Same with the Captain Morgan. And the Captain and I have been becoming better friends lately too. Women can&#8217;t get enough of the Captain, either. That&#8217;s all I hear them order at the bar now is Captain and Sprite. Captain and Coke. You absolutely HAVE to have a bottle of the shit behind your bar. Now a 1.75 of the Captain is $22.99 when it was just $19.99 about ten days ago. Doesn&#8217;t Todd Stroger and the gang realize that 10% of the state is out of work? Really, I don&#8217;t even know if he\/they are the ones responsible. No idea. Probably are. But I have no idea. Most likely.<\/p>\n<p>The bottom line though is that I like to partake in the occasional drink and I&#8217;m looking to hold someone responsible here. I had to step down to Evan Williams for Chrissakes !! I started with Knob Creek. Stepped down to Jack Daniels. Then I had to demote myself to Jimmy Beam. Now I&#8217;m supposed to drown my sorrows with Evan Williams? Who&#8217;s in charge of this fiasco?<\/p>\n<p>To be 100% honest, I am all for the high taxing of our most decadent luxuries. I am a strong proponent of legalizing marijuana and taxing the hell out of it. The government will make money. Poor schmucks that shouldn&#8217;t be in jail might be let out and no further people will go in for this most-harmless of activities. Jail overcrowding will be relieved big-time. But I have no problem with outrageous taxation of the product&#8212;-purely so the US government can make money&#8212;&#8212;-if they were to legalize it.<\/p>\n<p>However, this particular rant is not about decriminilization or legalizing it. It is about how I actually support the heavy taxing of things like cigarettes, liquor, and legal marijuana. It&#8217;s easy for me to sit on my pedestal here and promote the heavy taxing of cigarettes. I&#8217;ve never been a regular smoker. So go ahead&#8230;&#8230;tax it to death. Make it $10 per pack. Make millions of people quit or reap the profits off of that particular indulgence.<\/p>\n<p>And when we get right down to it&#8230;&#8230;just like I support the heavy taxing of ciggies and legal pot&#8230;&#8230;they should heavily tax liquor sales too. If it makes people drink less, drive impaired less often, and spend less money on the product versus more productive purchases, then I&#8217;m not so sure it isn&#8217;t a good thing. I&#8217;m just pissed that it&#8217;s the first product they&#8217;ve attacked that I actually consume. OK&#8230;&#8230;the only legal product. Woot.<\/p>\n<p>If the economy was better and I was working right now, I probably wouldn&#8217;t have\u00a0started this discussion. Jeez, I probably wouldn&#8217;t have even been up at the liquor store at 3pm on a Tuesday if I was working right now. Pretty sure I wouldn&#8217;t have been. But the fact is, I am off on a Tuesday. Would LOVE to be working Mr. Obama. But unfortunately, I&#8217;m not. So I found myself up at the liquor store and I&#8217;m not liking what I&#8217;m seeing. The news told me the other day that unemployment is up to a 26 year high. And you&#8217;re trying to tell me that alcohol prices are going thru the roof at this exact same time?<\/p>\n<p>Sounds like a bad mixture. Go find a good one for yourself at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ShareMyShot.com\">www.ShareMyShot.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dude, I&#8217;m tellin ya&#8230;&#8230;. Before I even get into the pocket draining, depressing experience I just had, I want to give you a great referral on a website. A friend of mine just launched a website called www.ShareMyShot.com He posts recipes and reviews on tasty shot concoctions and encourages others to post theirs as well. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[34,27,33,28,31],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dudeimtellinya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dudeimtellinya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dudeimtellinya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dudeimtellinya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dudeimtellinya.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=84"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.dudeimtellinya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96,"href":"http:\/\/www.dudeimtellinya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84\/revisions\/96"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dudeimtellinya.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=84"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dudeimtellinya.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=84"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dudeimtellinya.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=84"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}