Is there more to life than sport and beer?

Recent arrivals to the World of Bollocks could be excused for believing, as some critics have previously asserted, that all that ever gets blathered on about here at the World of Bollocks is either sport or beer. That, frankly, is a load of poo. We leave no stone unturned and no topic unexplored here at the World (yeah, worked better when it was 'the Weak' I realise) and any assertion that all we ever discuss is (a) sport (b) beer or (c) combinations thereof will be vehemently denied with extreme Hansonesque prejudice. And furthermore...

HOLY SHIT, GROLSCH IS $24 A CARTON AT HENRY'S THIS WEEK!!!1!









Yes, it's real, imported, genuine, Dutch-as-clogs Grolsch. For $24 a carton. The catch? It's short-dated stock. Meaning I have two cartons of Grolsch to knock off by the end of March, on top of the other bargain beer stockpiled about the place. Just as well the old man's coming over for the last half of next month. (Who the fuck am I kidding. He'll turn up just in time to count the empties in the recycling bin.) It would seem that Henry's - a South Island bottle-shop chain owned by a major supermarket retailer, sort of like BWS without the eye-gouging orange shopfronts - bought in a couple of shipping containers of el cheapo short-dated product and decided to see how many of their customers thought quality Dutch lager at a buck a bottle was too good to be true, even time-bound in the enjoyment thereof.

They must have seen me coming. I don't have a problem with drinking, it would seem. I have a lot of beer which is sitting around the house, not getting drunk - as am I. What I have a problem with... no, let's be fair, an addiction to... is finding cheap beer on special and buying it up like it's some sort of treasured investment opportunity. Which, I guess, it is. I'm investing in the future. Specifically a future rich in BBQs and televised sporting events.

The short-dated stock clearance trick is an old one, and one which we at/in/of The Hovel (Randwick, Sydney, 1998-99) had pretty much licked. Jase, one of the med heads who, when he wasn't avoiding study at the uni bar with the aid of the $2.50 vodkas on hand (medicinal alcohol, of course) worked at the Bondi Junction store of a certain retailer whose name begins with a consonant and ends with Mart. It was a dark, desperate weeknight at the onset of semester two exam study madness when he called the flat from work. "Get down here!" he demanded. "And bring the Brown Hornet!"






















Neither of these dodgy bastards deporting themselves across the Hornet are Jase. But that's hardly their fault, they were born that way.


What Jase had done, of course, was spend the flat's grocery kitty on two dozen cartons of Australia's Choice brand cola. As you do. The store had a massive oversupply of the stuff, it was running dangerously close to the 'best before' date (if AC Cola can be said to be 'best before' anything - possibly self-flagellation) and had run a clearance on the stuff, slash-and-burn styles - three bucks a carton of 24 cans. Except some certified genius on the staff couldn't be arsed to recode the PLU for the short-dated stuff as clearance, so all the AC Cola in the store was effectively at clearance price. Which was how the boot and back seat of my 1988 Skyline happened to end up crammed to capacity with two dozen cartons of AC Cola - all of which were generously well in date and as fresh as the maker could provide. Didn't make the stuff any less fucking horrible to drink, of course. AC Cola mixes well with nothing, other than possibly drain cleaner; it tastes of arse tsuzjed with zest of more arse; and four cans in 12 hours will turn your piss the colour and aroma of V. Or Robitussin, depending on what you're mixing it with. I heartily fail to recommend the Brown Douglas.

Of course, this was hardly anything new for The Hovel. Pretty much the exact same thing had happened the year before. The majority of our exam periods in the Hovel were fuelled on $3-a-carton AC Cola and cases of Mi Goreng noodles. Surprisingly, we managed not to fuck all of our exams up. Unsurprisingly, over the same period we pretty much managed not to fuck anybody we were interested in (or anybody at all for that matter), probably because we reeked to the pores of that nasty congealed black oily shit packaged with Mi Goreng that you never quite know what to do with - other than to pelt unsuspecting flatmates with to vent study-stress cabin fever, or just 'cos they gave you a touch-up at N64 Goldeneye - and courtesy our AC intake, could (and did) burp the anthems of several countries without taking a breath.



















The precious...
(if you can describe anything as 'precious' which retails at $10 for a case of 24 from your friendly neighbourhood dodgy Asian supermarket)




















How we rolled at The Hovel (and later at Chateaux Dodgy 1-3), Goldeneye styles: one-shot-one-kill, pistols only. Made for epic four-way multiplayer action - though woe betide any poor bastard with only enough time to pick up the .44 Magnum before the shitfight commenced. That fucker was slower to load than a Commodore 64 with a tape drive.


Unfortunately, the folks at Henry's were careful enough to ensure only the short-dated stuff was available on the shop floor, foiling my dastardly plans to pull another Jase-esque switcheroo.

Oh well. That stockpile ain't gonna reduce itself, better get to it I guess. Anyone keen for one?

The Doctor is OUT.