You know, I think I finally came to a realization of something that I've already long known. Bars are the absolutely shittiest places in this society. Next to churches, of course.

Why go to a bar? Really, WHY? To drink? You can buy your own liquor and mixers and what not at a fraction of what they charge you at a bar. Drink at home. Out of town? Go to a restaurant that has a bar, and get a drink with your meal. Might as well get two things done at once and have a table to yourself at the same time.

Want to see a live band? Bad stand-up comedy? Then we're talking about going to a club, not a bar. You can watch the band while sitting at the club's bar, but let's not bullshit ourselves for one minute: it's still a club you're at, not a bar. "Nudie bar"? That's the same thing as a strip club.

If you're away on vacation AND want a drink without buying a meal, then, maybe I could see why a bar would appeal. Or if you have a friend from out of town and you want to hang out with him or her BUT you have annoying roommates or some other reason why staying at home would suck, then OK, I could maybe see that too. Though you should be more concerned with changing your undesirable living conditions than making a determined return with a hang over.

What's there to do at a bar anyway? OK, you sit down and drink, but what else? Talk to some drunken asshole strangers? No thanks. And if you smoke, you'll still have to step outside for that in some of these states, including mine. So what else is there to do? Pool and darts? How come pool and darts are the only games they have there? How did it come to be those two? You can't even find a decent arcade or pinball machine in most of these places anymore. Besides, it's beyond stupid hand a bunch of sharp pointy objects to some drunks, then tell them to throw the objects at a target hung up on the back of a door. 90% of the people who play these games would never normally play them on their own. They're doing them just because they're there. If the only game a bar offered was cross-dressing Twister, people would do it.

Looking to hit on and pick up somebody? Please. The women are so used to being hit on at these places that they view questions like "Excuse me, but could you tell me what time it is?" as an invasion of their privacy. They always travel to these places like herds of cattle anyway, for protection. And if you're a woman looking for a guy, you can thank feminism for pussy-whipping men into being too polite to strike up conversation. Unless they're drunken jerks. Which brings me to the next section.

If you feel the need to drink in order to lose your inhabitions so that some action starts, then you are already fucked up as it is. You are pathetic, and weak. Do the world a favor and just get into your car without wearing your seatbelt after you pound your 38 bottles of Guiness.

Come to think of it, I suppose that's one advantage to the bars: stratification. Natural selection in action. Let the fucked-up fuck themselves up further until they die.

It's probably the only thing I can think of New Year's Eve as being good for.

Bottoms up!