An experiment in inebriation, aka: how I learned to stop worrying and love the Spumante.

The long story: I was perusing the beer aisle in my local supermarket, when I stumbled across an old favourite: cheap, sweet, bubbly and wonderful, my old friend Bernadino Spumante. Instead of a beer review, tonight we have a drunkenness test.

The players: Me. A bottle of a Bernadino Spumante. A wine glass.

Method, have a glass, describe effects, have a glass, describe effects, have a glass, etc.

I guess there are probably 4 or 5 glasses in the 750ml bottle, it says 5.9 standard drinks in the bottle, @ 10%ABV, I believe it. It also says "preservatives added", no doubt. Instead of a cork it has a plastic stopper, once upon a time people sneered at anything that didn’t use a cork, how stupid we were, especially given the wine industries embrace of screw caps these days.

I feel some science coming on, so let’s get testing.

0 glasses.
Effect: none, driving is no problem, humour impaired, can’t play pool.

1 glass.
Effect: warm, the skin on my face feels odd, humour impaired, could drive, but generally I wouldn’t drive after drinking anything.

2 glasses.
Effect: Jeeze, I dunno, it’s really hard to define how you feel, thinking too much about things that generally just happen changes the experience. Anyway, feel much the same as after glass 1, but maybe that’s ‘cos I’m just knocking them back quickly.

I did feel a bit detached from my central nervous system a while ago, if that makes any sense.

I wonder if this will take long enough that I stop making any sense, I don’t think I’ll get anywhere near there from one bottle of wine. Maybe next time I should try a couple of bottles of scrumpy, or perhaps a dozen of some nasty cheap beers.

3 glasses.
Effect: I have to admit something, at this point I’ve complete ruined the science of this experiement, I accidentally ate some of my dinner. Which will no doubt have some effect on alcohol absorption and such. Couldn’t help it, perfect baked potato with sour cream and cheese, and a lovely teriaki chicken fillet.

I’m starting to feel a bit detached from my forehead.

I suspect that I could drive, but I wouldn’t want to try, and I have no idea if I’d be legal, I suspect not. (Meal not withstanding.)

I’ve also just made the decision that from this point I’m going to try to avoid correcting any typos I make, this should help to illustrate my manual dexterity as it detrioeirates, and damn but that word went bad. Deteriorates. Heh.

I have a great sense of well being coming on, it was quite sudden just now,m everything feels pretty happy, and smiles want to sneak out the sides of my mouth.

I should do experiemtns like this more often.

Another admission, I actually start writing about each glass before I’ve finished it, in this case before I’d even started it, really. I just finished the last of this glass. So the glass diviion system (division, heh) is a bit of a fraud, forgiveme dear reader. (and put another space i there for me, and that word was supposed to be "in".)

I just said to Claire "I’m doing science, hahahahahahaah, I’m not really drinking, hehehe" she gave me a funyn look, I’d say I’m strrting to be a bit impaired, she hardly eve rlaughs at my jokes, but she usually saves the disdainful looks for the bedroom. *chuckle*

This sense of wellbeing is not infectious, and there’s no way I’m giving any of my science to Claire. I need all of it for myself. 🙂

I’ve started smiling and looking only with my eyes (you know, when you track something moving with your eyeeballs only, not by turning your head), the sense of wellbeing is increasing. It’s good fun doing this. Did I already sy I’d ;like to do more tests (that’s "tests") like this in future.

4 glasses.
More food, sorry mr sciencre. Mr Science! I mean. 🙂

(MY fingers aren’t working so well now, forgive me.)

Tried to engage Claire in a conversation, techicnical in nature, about toll providers and how best to implement a new numbering system her company is currently testing. I did very poorlu. Poorly. I don’t think I can even undewrstand my point myself, so no difference there. (Hell, this bottle cost me all of $5.95)

This stuff tastes good. I remmeber now why I used to like this cheap sugary syrupy crap, quite apart from the cheapness, it’s quite nice. You don’t need a developed pallet, as you might with a nice chiante, or whatever., (pallette? palette? jeesh.)

Startred ranting about how soccer is all a have, and a girls game, and the closest they get to contact is when one of the acotrs falls on the ground and feigns and injury. Claire not impressed.

Now dripping in irony as a doco has now come on about alcoholism. HEh. Nice one Tv ONe. ("One for the road" on Inside New Zeala,d or something.)

Oh, one thing about rhe falvour of this stuff. I’m not fom… completely fooled, I can taste something distinctly jnon-fruity in there, noething that makes me think of sodium. Can anyone tell me what sodium tastes like thiough?)

Funyn line from tv "he seemed to have arms like an eagle", arms, ah, eagles fo… argh, eagles don’t have arms. To say a soccer player has no arms, or hss wings, or whatever, is not a complement, is it? I don’t thin he meant what he said. Think.

Damn. Typo hell.

Quite apart from the ey looking thing, I was just eye looking at the tv, when I also went ‘eyes unfocused’.

Van damme I’m a cheap drunk. Noiw IU’m watching Bridget Jones.

Made a joke about how ironic it is that the movie is brought to us by cadbury flake, got a funny look, I thought it was funny.

LAughed at a Lion Red ad, this is serious.

Goerge. That’s ‘George’, anyway, George doesn’t know what the fuss is.

5 glasses.
It would be better to not even remotely consider dirving t at this point. As the only place anyone would get in this state is proabbly into the emergency ward. Either that or home, but you know, that’s how drunks think, proably, and in drunken arithmetic, I dunno, is it worth it? I don’t think so, but I’m nto a drunk driving idiot.

To Goegre… George’s etenra;l eternal dissapointment I helped Claire finish her dinner, poor boy, I’m sure he wanted some of that lovely chicken.

Crap, disappointment. Wair, which is right? erluddy hell.

Speaking of drunken driving, my seemeingly endless search for a new car has been proceeding, drove a byunch of Fords, of all things, starting witrh a few Mondeos, which are really quite lovely cars, especially the Ghia variants, lovely electrically operated seast, climate control, and this and that, but yesterday we went and tested a Ford Taurus, seriously impressive, lovely big engine (3l, v6) super smooth, sounded great, very powerful and surprisingly quiet. Well appointed interior, and it looke pretty good (apart from the jutting out bumper thing), the guy had originally wanted 11k, but I offered him 6k and he took it, I got last minute jitters and told him I’d let him know in a couple of hours, headed home and jumped on the web to do some reading, what I found freaked the hell out of me, the car I drove was flawless, but there was SO much negative feedback for the model that I had to call him back and pass on the car. Was a very difficult thing to do, I must say. It was a lovaly car.

The Mondeo, by the way, is pretty good, known in some circles in England as the Mundaneo, due to being as common as a clitoris, in NZ we don’t have so many.

LTSA say the Mondeo is very very very highly safe, which is nice. Some of the feedback on the car isn’t super positive, but you never know. At some point I have to bit the bullet, and the seats and such of the Mondeo are very very nice.

Don’t want a bloody lemon, how long have I been looking for now, though? It feels like months.

5 & 1/3rd glasses.
Running very low on the bubbles now. Don’t know if that’s a good thing or not, IU think next time I’ll try a scientifical experiment of the human response to 2 bottles, or something. Not sure if I can stomcha the aforementioned dozen of nasty cheap beer.

By the way, STV really is a very good way to vote.

George is looking at me like he wants a nice cuddle, unfortuantely Claire has banned him from the soda. Sofa. Sorry George.

I’ve got to say, if I had $30k to spare, I’d so be looking at a Toyota Harrier. Damn it looks like a nice car. Actually, the current Nissan Primera wagons, and Toyota Avensis are pretty kick-ass too.

Anyway, the bottle is gone, to be frank I’m actually feeling ok. Not pissed by any stretch, walking around is completely normal and none stumbly, though I’d probably be well over the limit (as as I’ve probably already (preotesteth too much) said, I certainly wouldn’t even considering driving.

So that;’s the end of the real science bit, now on to trying to balance out thje dinner, I’ve decided I need to balance the alcohol absorbing nature of my chicken, potato4es and sweetcorn, with anothe r glass of wine. So…

6 & 1/3rd glass.
This isn’t Spumante, instread I’ve ressorted to the cask of "White" I keep handy ont he top of the fridge. This is 12.5% ABV, unlike the 10% Spumante.

It also tastes completely different, apart from the obvious additional alcohol over the palllette it also has a much bigger flavour, much less sugars left, making it much driyer, though of course it’s not rreally a dry wine, it’s just that the Spumante is so very veyr lovely anhd sweet. 🙂

Anyway, this still is actually quite un-nice by comparison, quite a claim that a $6 ottle of wine could be better than any other wine, really. I guess it’s just my mister islly tasebuds..

Conclusion.
Don’t drink a bottle of wine on a Monday night unless you’re a cool guy that doesn’t get hangovers. If you’re lucky enough to be a cool guy, go for it. 🙂 🙂

G’night.