Able to ask probing questions better than Larry King. More insightful than an X-ray. Able to leap tall buildings with a single bound. Okay, that last one really doesn't apply, but it's still, once again, time for The Friday Five's evil doppleganger, The Cheddar X, to raise its head and belch a loud, cheesy, smelly belch. So, let's begin.
1. What's your worst alcohol related experience?
Let us journey, you and I, to a time nine years ago. Ryan Rhodes was 19 years old, and he thought himself to be as invincible as pretty much every 19 year old does. I was attending a weekend party in LaCrosse, Wis. with several buddies, and the beer and hard liquor were flowing freely. Then, the munchies hit, and everyone was talking about how great some Taco Bell would taste. I decided to surprise my friends by sneaking off and buying a buttload of burritos and bringing them back to the party.
Ah, but I was drunk. Nay, wasted. And, LaCrosse is not a city that can be easily navigated when one is stumbling stupid. Oh, and driving drunk is monumentally idiotic in its own right. But, what did I care? I was invincible, after all.
About 40 minutes into my journey, I was lost on some unknown road heading well away from LaCrosse, and flashing lights were in the rearview mirror. I remember feeling a touch of relief knowing that I was going to be pulled off the open road, because by that time I was driving with one eye closed to prevent drunk double-vision.
The officer asked me to perform a slew of roadside human tricks, and I refused to do any of them, because I knew I'd fail and I didn't want to embarras myself any more than I already was. So, out came the breathalizer, which I was willing to do, and I blew a .17. Off to jail I went.
At the jail, I was processed, which included a more accurate blood draw test, which upped my BAC to .247. To put it mildly, I was bombed. Of course, none of my friends knew what happened to me, and I had no idea who to even call, so I sat in jail until 4:30 p.m. the next day, playing solitaire with a deck of cards that consisted of two match books that had been artistically altered to serve as the missing ace of spades and the jack of diamonds. I also read from some really bad fantasy paperback.
I haven't gotten behind the wheel after drinking since. Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid.
2. What's the absolute dumbest thing you've done?
See answer to Question #1. Also, detonating a grenade in my backyard. Oh, and shooting myself in the foot with a B.B. gun.
3. What is your biggest crossroad in life? That is, what choice, action, non-action most brought you to where you are instead of where you might have been?
Deciding on a college major after three years of floundering. I went from half-heartedly going for an English major/history minor with a teaching certificate to a mass communications/journalism major/history minor, and I took to it like a duck to water (with a few interesting adventures along the way).
4. Who are your favorite bloggers and why?
Plain Layne, for her honesty, stellar writing, and her ability to make me stop and think about things I normally wouldn't stop and think about. Daintily Dirty, for her ability to irritate the living shit out of me by standing by political idealogies that are totally opposite of my own (and she's also an entertaining read). Intellectual Poison, because he's a lot like me, and he says "fuck" a lot. Instapundit, because he links to everything I want to find. A Small Victory, because she always conducts cool poetry contests and her comment section is one of the livliest and entertaining on the Web. And pretty much everyone else linked over there on the right, for reasons too varied to go into in depth here.
5. What's your best example of ironic justice?
Mike Tyson.
6. Which is more futile, the war on drugs or the war on terrorism?
The war on drugs. At least the war on terrorism gets results. And, tearing down the death-cult fanatical breeding ground that spawns terrorists is far more important than ensuring that Sir Puffs-A-Lot isn't smoking it up from a skull bong in the privacy of his home and ordering Dominos.
UPDATE: As an addition to #6, I give you this article. Was the battle against the KKK futile? Of course not.
UPDATE: Futile? No fucking way.
Posted by Ryan at August 22, 2003 10:56 AM
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